


Swimming in the Styx

by StewartM



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Crimes & Criminals, Espionage, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Office Of Naval Intelligence, Organized Crime, Superpowers, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-19 17:07:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 66,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2396168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StewartM/pseuds/StewartM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>August, 1941. On the streets of Gotham City, they say the Four Families are untouchable, and no one is more dangerous than Batman. Tonight, both these myths are about to be shattered. The first by the Dark Knight himself. The second by a myth far older than the City. One of the deep myths before the oldest books. A myth that's mighty, and unrelenting, and wondrous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Strange Bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daermi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daermi/gifts).



Arturo Bertinelli was a compact gentleman on the graying side of forty with a dark Italian complexion and a well-trimmed mustache, but this was hard to see through the dust on his face. He awoke in bleary confusion to something cool caked on his skin and his wife Marie yelling beside him. But the detail which held his attention was the sight of the beautiful stars overhead: part of his ceiling and roof were gone. And the hole was cut in the stylized shape of a bat.

Arturo sat up and coughed. Each movement caused a puff of dust to float off his hair or nightshirt. It took a panicked minute for him to find Marie and hug her and for the couple to convince each other they didn't know what was going on. He climbed out of bed and pulled the lamp cord.

There was a huge message on the wall.

**WHERE ARE THEY, ARTY?**

Arturo gasped and clutched his chest. His wife turned and screamed. The massive letters were written in black paint. Arturo paced across the room to catch his bearings as much as escape from the message. The powder on the bed and floor was clearly plaster from the hole in the ceiling. It wasn't clear what caused the plaster to fall, where the frame studs and shingles had gone, or how this had occurred right over his head without waking him.

He decided the first step to making sense of the situation was to wash out his eyes. He gestured for his wife to be calm and walked into the master bathroom. He turned on the lights and found the message on the mirror.

**WHERE ARE THEY, ARTY?**

Arturo flinched and turned away. No one called him that name. No one had called him that name in eleven years. Not since the vendettas. Not since his brothers died. He focused on his breath to quiet his racing heart, coughing on more dust for his efforts, and hastily washed his hands and face. The moist plaster did not come off cleanly but left behind sticky streaks of residue. He looked at the message again, superimposed on his reflection, and it took a force of will to not smash the mirror with his fists. He splashed the hot water and rubbed his face and hands harder and harder until the worst of the plaster flaked off. Marie joined him at the sink. She clutched the revolver from his sock drawer. Amidst his panic, he felt a glow of pride: his wife never scared like a dame.

They heard a shriek and ran into the hall to help. Paulie, their youngest, was standing in front of his room in shock. His sisters Anita and Lucia were trying to comfort him despite being obviously spooked themselves. The hall lights were on, and the children stared at a black message painted across the hallway.

**WHERE ARE THEY, ARTY?**

As Marie rushed to their young son, Arturo marched furiously though the house, turning on the lights as he went. The message desecrated every room.

**WHERE ARE THEY, ARTY?**

**WHERE ARE THEY, ARTY?**

**WHERE ARE THEY, ARTY?**

The offending question was even graffitied on the mantle above the dog's basket. Their spaniel Zito was awake now, panting earnestly at his master's confusion. Arturo kicked the basket in rebuke. Zito flinched and whined, and Arturo cursed at him. What good was a dog who slept when an intruder came?

Then he noticed something in the foyer. The wall with his family's photographs had been changed. He walked over slowly, doubting his eyes. All their nicely framed portraits were scattered on the floor, replaced with a messy collage of shipping manifests, prints of passport pages, immigration records, and receipts for steamship tickets pinned to the wall. Arturo gleaned the meaning in an instant. Until now he merely felt alarmed by the vandal, but now he knew doom.

Back in the hallway, little Anita was crying and Paulie had retreated to his room. Marie was at the telephone, fighting to keep her hand steady long enough to enter a number. He caught her arm with more force than he intended. " _Smettere_! Stop!"

She looked up, too surprised to be annoyed. "What?"

"What are you doing?"

"Calling your cousin." He can help. He'd want to know. The elaboration was unnecessary and unsaid.

Arturo grimaced. It was true. An attack on their home was a Family matter. He was obliged to let the Family know. The Bertinellis looked after their own, and they would level the city to do it. On any other night he would have already made the call.

He didn't let go of her arm. "No. Not now." He took the receiver from her and returned it to the cradle. "Not just yet."

"Dear, what are you doing?"

"Not yet, not yet." He kissed her neck. "Not yet."

She stole a worried glance at the children. "Why not?"

"You have to trust me, yes? You have to leave now."

She nodded distracted. "We'll stay at Frank's house. Or Aunt Clarisa. Or-"

"No!" He held her shoulders. "You can't. Not anyone. You remember that hotel? The hotel from our anniversary? Take the children and head straight there, no stopping. Book a room. Not under our name. Use a different name."

"What? Arturo, that's nonsense."

"Don't let anyone know where you are. I'll call you there soon."

"That's half the state away. Why not go to your-"

He glared and kissed her on the lips. "Go. I need to know you're safe. I'll take care of this."

She looked at him uncertainly. "I love you."

"I love you more. Don't take anything. Drive as fast as you can."

Marie left him to gather the kids. Arturo picked up the revolver she had left next to the phone and ran a finger across the beveled metal grooves of the cylinder. It had been awhile since he held one. He looked at the phone. The Family could never know. But he was gravely out of his depth tonight. He would need help.

He laid down the weapon and dialed a number. It rang ten times. A clipped voice picked up on the eleventh ring. Arturo spoke as calmly as he could manage. "This is Responder Shiloh Green. I need to speak with Admiral Cornwell."

* * *

Crime in Gotham City was a feudal system. Only desperate bottom-feeders and a few specialists were fully independent. Everyone else ran with a crew. Most crews were willing to let smaller outfits work their territory in return for tribute or favors, and territory didn't always mean a spot on a map. Some gangs claimed a line of business, like carjacking, or a relationship, like the tolerance of a ward lieutenant responsible for claims of carjacking. Taken together, Gotham's gang hierarchies were complicated, vast, and secretive, but two simple facts were absolutely certain: everyone bowed to the kings at the top, and the kings of Gotham were the Four Families.

The Four Families - the Falcones, the Maronis, the Nobilios, and the Bertinellis - were a loose but stable alliance of the most powerful criminal syndicates of the Gotham underworld. They weren't just the top, they were a league apart. Most felons considered it the job of a lifetime if they spent five minutes in a bank vault. The Four Families bought and sold banks. Many racketeers offered bribes to the police so they could partake in illicit behavior. The Four Families _received_ bribes _from_ the police so the police could partake in illicit behavior. The wealth, muscle, and connections their empires possessed was practically beyond measure, and it didn't seem likely to decline anytime soon. The alliance was almost a decade old, or half a century in mob years, and together the Families knew they were invincible.

Part of the Families' success was knowing how to handle the authorities. This was easy with local and state officials whom they could muster a hundred forms of leverage against, but even they had little pull with the federal government. Accordingly, the Four Families went to great lengths to please and distract federal agencies, so when men from Navy Intelligence visited in the spring with a proposition, they listened carefully. In short, the Navy wanted informers. Washington feared the Axis powers aimed to sabotage the fledgling American war machine, and Gotham City was an industrial giant with the largest shipyards in the country. But countering espionage in Gotham was like hunting mosquitoes in a jungle. To even begin peeling back the layers of the city required an insider, and the Four Families had more roots in the city's dank crevices than anyone. They would know if someone was agitating the Italian-American longshoremen or the German-American steelworkers. They saw who was buying weapons or selling secrets. They could stop any union strike in an afternoon. They ran every step of the ration black market. They even had ears in the Bund and other pro-fascist clubs. They were perfect for the job.

The Four's patriarchs knew instantly they would accept. Any chance to make nice with federal men was a good move, and they had a bone to pick with Mussolini. But of course they asked what the Navy was offering in return. Not missing a beat, their visitors showed papers from the Justice Department concerning Tommy Maroni and Gus Falcone, two mob lieutenants who were sentenced to life in Alcatraz a decade ago. If the Families cooperated, the two would be moved to a low-security prison near Gotham with parole in five years. Then the Navy men produced a stack of court dockets for sixteen ongoing cases by the FBI and Treasury Department against businesses the Four had investments in and hinted these cases could quietly disappear.

It took about eight seconds of discussion to reach an agreement.

The Navy's commander of the project – soon named Operation Underworld by someone with a flair for the dramatic – was Admiral Bernard Cornwell. He had to admit those dirty racketeers had been unfailingly helpful from day one. The number of solid leads they provided exceeded his staff's most optimistic projection by a mile. Nothing in the city got past the Families. And, much to his surprise, the crooks never asked for more rewards or compensation. If he didn't know better, he might think they were serving out of some grain of altruism. Maybe they were patriots.

So it was with mixed surprise that Admiral Cornwell received a call from one of the crooks shortly before midnight. His maid woke him and brought him the phone. It was his secretary at the office claiming he had one of the Gotham special informers on an emergency line.

"Yes, hello?"

The call to his home in Falls Church, Virginia through the Navy Department's switchboard in Washington from a phone in Gotham City sounded perfectly clear. Any misunderstanding was the fault of its participants.

"Is'zis Cornwell?"

"This is Admiral Cornwell, may I ask who's-"

"It's Arturo. We need to talk quick, see?"

"Arturo? Arturo, Arturo."

"Bertinelli. We met."

"Hm. Oh yes, Mr. Bertinelli." Arturo was one of the least productive agents in the program, and the Admiral couldn't remember ever speaking with him. "How can I help you, sir?"

"Listen. I need backup, and I need it fast."

The Admiral sat up straighter with a sudden serious expression. "What's the danger?"

"No time to squawk, I'm dyin' over here. Just pick me up lickty-split. I'll be at my safe house. Got that?"

"If you want our protection, I need to know the nature of the threat."

"Fine, it's … well ..."

"Pardon?"

"It's Batman. Batman's after me."

" … "

"Hey! You still there?"

Cornwell hadn't attended the infamous Project Galen deposition last year, but everyone knew the rumors. Two anarchists in gaudy outfits broke into an Army research base, stole sensitive items, lit half the camp on fire, and somehow escaped, never to be seen again. To top it all off, the whole fiasco happened under the nose of the mighty Amanda Waller, the only woman with the President's number and the only person to ever intimidate J. Edgar Hoover, or so the scuttlebutt said. This pair had hoodwinked her, leaving only one clue: one anarchist called himself Batman.

In those weird backrooms of power where spooks swapped stories, the name had become something between a punchline and the Bogeyman. He was the Headless Horseman. He put Pancho Villa to shame. The Admiral was sure he didn't exist. Not like that anyway.

"Yes, yes I'm still here, Mr. Bertinelli. Who is Batman?"

"Who? You ask who? Is that a joke? You think I got time to jaw around some funnies now, buddy?"

"Well, I'll confess I'm not familiar with many of the notables of your city, and I thought perhaps you've heard-"

"Ughh! _Come ha fatto un grasso, pigro sempliciotto-_ "

"Now hold on, sir. This is not how one addresses an … I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Look, pal, it doesn't matter whose boots you gotta kiss, get me the Marines. Or get me the Mounties, I don't care. If you want me to still have all my limbs by sunrise, have someone with a lotta' firepower pick me up at my safehouse, _capisci_?"

"Alright, alright, Mr. Bertinelli, I'll make sure that-"

The line went dead.

With two phone calls, Cornwell had a young commander rousing three of his colleagues for ideas on who might help Arturo Bertinelli on short notice. His team for Operation Underworld had men in the area, but at the moment they were all administrative staff, not bodyguards. They dared not call the police; Underworld was too important, and the GCPD would be furious about it. The FBI had an office nearby, but the story would make them go ballistic worse than the cops (who might at least have a working relationship with the mob). The last thing he wanted was his man in FBI custody. Few in the Bureau were cleared to know, and the agents would ask questions.

One of his colleagues, an expert in organized crime, had been silent for a minute. Now he interrupted to point out the request made no sense. Whatever the threat, the Italian mobs never sought outside help. Never. Not for a private matter. It was unthinkable. They handled their own affairs with a tight-lipped discipline most spy rings could only dream of. And the Bertinellis were big shots. A senior member like Arturo could have rallied five family soldiers and a dozen paid street toughs to his defense in the time it took to call the Admiral. They all lived near each other for a reason.

Cornwall had no answers for the puzzle, but the fact remained Mr. Bertinelli, a loyal asset, was in imminent danger. Whatever the story was, it could be dealt with once he was safe. Finally, another colleague, an Army liaison, remembered his own Army intelligence might have a man passing through Gotham at the moment. A real cowboy, in fact, no stranger to dust-ups, and he could keep his mouth shut. He was a captain named Steven Trevor.


	2. Unknown Predators

Batman stood in a brick wall and couldn't stop grinning. He felt alive in a way he hadn't felt in a long time.

Finding Arturo Bertinelli's safe house had been easy. Most big mobster kept several. The fact Arturo _only_ had one revealed as much about his finances as his fallback options. It wasn't even a safe house, it was a safe _room,_ and he didn't even bother to put it in a basement like a sensible fugitive. No, it was a fourth floor apartment in a quiet neighborhood downtown. Even more bizarrely, the place was purchased in his name. Mobsters loved real estate and knew a dozen tricks to twist a deed: fake names and proxy owners were child's play. None were a challenge for Batman, but a token effort was expected.

The safe room did have the usual armored entrance. Its wooden door could be barricaded on the inside by a sliding wall of overlapping steel slats which rolled down on tracks like a garage door to lock shut with two latches sunk into the floor. This sliding barrier wasn't the most sophisticated piece of security Batman had seen in a criminal lair, but it was among the most practical. With three seconds and a strong arm, someone could shield the apartment against any force short of heavy construction equipment, and big machinery wouldn't fit in the elevator (perhaps the fourth floor had a perk after all).

The walls were just as important. Arturo had installed three layers of sturdy brick. A determined man with a sledgehammer might break through eventually, but the noise would wake the building, and police patrolled this street at all hours. The walls were so thick the sheer dimensions puzzled Batman. The size of Arturo's room hadn't changed, so if three mortared bricks were a foot across then it had to mean his neighbors' already-tiny apartments were now a foot smaller and asymmetrical. The floor and ceiling were also bricked which implied even odder scenarios above and below. Gotham had some weird apartments, but not in this part of town.

After a brief search, the answer was simple. The neighbors didn't mind because they weren't home. All the adjacent apartments had absentee owners. Batman suspected these were also safe rooms for junior Bertinellis or their allies. Like every other detail of the mission, that served him perfectly. The apartment to the west had a window facing the alley which meant he could casually come and go with as much gear as he could carry. So he brought a gas mask, left the window open, and laid a heavy tarp on the floor. When the site was ventilated, he slowly opened a glass jar of strong muratic acid and brushed it on a man-sized segment of the wall. Once it softened the mortar to a thick putty, he used a sharp chisel to carve around each brick, then he eased them out with the aid of a prybar and his prodigious hand strength. One by one, hour by hour, he quietly carved a hole though two layers of the wall. He did not carve through the third layer. He still applied acid and loosened the bricks with the chisel, but he didn't push the point though. The wall still looked untouched from the other side.

That was last night. Now Batman crouched in the new alcove, waiting in the dark. It occurred to him to simply wait inside the room, but as much as he regretted frightening the man's children, he was hell-bent on using every ugly tactic he had. He had triple-checked every lead. He spent four evenings setting the scene. The plan was more polished and reviewed than any he had ever devised. He was fit, rested, focused, decked out in tools, and armed to the teeth. He had taken every precaution. He would make no mistakes. The only challenge was staying calm. His gut rolled with contempt and a mighty eagerness.

* * *

Dr. Lyle Pemberly was a distinguished fellow at the Franklin Institute for International Relations. It was a new position for him, one last relaxing post before he eased into retirement. He already had twenty years in the foreign service and eight in academia under his belt. During his teaching years, he also consulted as an expert on treaty law, but the role was behind him now. These days he enjoyed coming in late, writing papers on whatever struck his fancy, mentoring the younger researchers, ordering lunch on the Institute's dime, and taking Fridays off to hit the links.

Still, when an old congressional friend called in the morning to beg his help on a diplomatic conundrum, Dr. Pemberly had to admit he was intrigued. If he agreed, he would meet a man late that night in complete secrecy, and he wouldn't be paid. The bold inconvenience of the request was beguiling. If his friend had tried an appointment during sensible hours, or if he had explained the issue or offered a fee, Dr. Pemberly would have declined. But requesting a covert consultation on short notice _pro bono_? Something was afoot. Diplomats rarely saw as much intrigue and skullduggery as many people imagined, but they saw far more than semi-retired professors. He was a rover at heart, and deep down he missed the intrigue.

Dr. Pemberly agreed to meet the man at his home near the Institute and its benefactor, Hudson University. The tree-lined streets around Hudson were the closest one could be to the city center and still find private lawns with white-picket fences. Naturally, the rent for a small home could ransom Wyoming. But money wasn't a concern for Dr. Pemberly. Consulting had been lucrative. If war was the last resort to settle matters between nations, he was the second-to-last resort. Very few conflicts were purely practical - two starving men fighting over one dinner, so to speak. Many were about saving face: any leader who backed down from a conflict looked weak. Sometimes nations had a solution both would tolerate, but neither trusted the other to keep it, and a few disagreements were literal formalities, the title of a dead monarch or the name of a bridge. Whatever the contention, Dr. Pemberly could find a deal which sent everyone home happy. He had friends in every embassy. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of diplomatic loopholes, cultural subtleties, and each nations' own legal precedents maybe five scholars on the planet could match. And no one could guide a negotiation with such adroitness. In the Great Game, he was a ringer.

As the hour turned late and the pot of tea he set out turned cold, Dr. Pemberly paced up and down his den. The wool of his sweater vest was getting itchy; he was normally in his silk smoking jacket by now. As he was about to give up and turn off the porch lights, he heard a quick knock at the door. A young man stood outside, a strapping fellow who introduced himself as Captain Trevor but cheerfully insisted Dr. Pemberly call him Steve. Steve could have stepped out of a recruitment poster with his crisp Army dress uniform and neatly parted short blonde hair. Dr. Pemberly had met enough military men to recognize the pilots wings and bronze star on his coat. _Curious_.

They shook hands. Steve offered a note of introduction from his congressional friend. Dr. Pemberly read it and invited Steve to take a seat inside.

Steve stayed stiffly at the door. "Forgive me, Doctor. But I have to ask a question or two first." Then he added, "Orders" like it was a valid apology.

Dr. Pemberly eyed him queerly. "Alright."

"Did you mention this meeting to anyone, sir?"

"No."

"No one at all?"

"No."

"Is there anyone here who might overhear or interrupt us?"

"Do you see a ring on my finger, Captain?"

"Sir, this is important."

"I promise I'm the only one here. But you might get some attention if you keep standing on my porch."

Steve nodded sheepishly. "Then excuse me for a moment. I hope you don't mind that I brought a guest."

"Oh. Alright."

Steve walked towards his car. Dr. Pemberly pondered this news. Who would demand such discretion? Some disgraced ambassador? A deposed head of state? He watched as the young captain led a figure though the dark of his driveway.

They came near and he saw "figure" was the right word indeed. Dr. Pemberly was a lifelong bachelor and well past his prime, but even he did a double take when _she_ came into view. The lady was tall, a head above him and an inch over Captain Trevor, and limb filled most of that height. When she approached, he came to his senses and started to offer a small bow, but she held his hand in both of hers and smiled, "Thank you for seeing us on short notice, Doctor. My name is Diana Prince." She had an accent he couldn't place. Dr. Pemberly nodded a bit too much and replied, "Naturally, yes. A pleasure to meet you, Diana. Do come in." She inclined her head graciously and entered. Steve watched this with the curved lip of someone holding in a smirk. Dr. Pemberly felt a tad annoyed at him.

Inside, Dr. Pemberly finally viewed his new guest under the light. Diana had faint Mediterranean features but blue eyes. Her black hair was pulled into a modest bun, and she wore round-framed glasses - unflattering, in his opinion. Overall, she seemed warm and poised, serene and professional, with an air of absolute confidence he rarely saw in anyone, let alone a woman of no obvious rank or heritage. He couldn't guess her purpose by her outfit, a dark blue jacket and pencil skirt found in any office, but he did find it strange her clothes didn't fit. The details were minor but hard to miss: the shoulders of her jacket pinched, her skirt hung lower than most of that style, and her white blouse was a size too tight. Dr. Pemberly had never met – frankly couldn't imagine – a lady with such obvious class dressing so carelessly.

He realized he was staring and hurried to shut the door. "Yes, both of you please take a seat. I'm afraid the tea is cold, but I'm happy to make another hot beverage if you wish. I also have a collection of spirits if that strikes your fancy."

Steve hung his hat and seemed to consider the second offer, but Diana replied before he could speak. "We're fine, Doctor, thank you." Steve didn't seem to mind her making his decision and took a seat in a plush den chair. Diana took the chair beside him. Dr. Pemberly didn't entertain often, but he had enough furniture for a party of three. He poured himself a glass of port from a nearby decanter and found a spot on the couch across from them.

"Well, well." Dr. Pemberly had the prim and measured diction of an Oxford don. "How can I help you fine young people?"

Steve leaned forward, all business. "You understand, Doctor, that this meeting is completely confidential. Not a word can leave this room."

Dr. Pemberly returned a wry look. "So I've inferred."

"I'm obliged to make completely sure."

"Young man, I was working in the federal service before you were in grade school. I can hold my tongue."

"Of course. Sorry."

"No harm done." Dr. Pemberly waved a hand. "Now, what's the problem that needs my help?"

Steve spoke. "Doctor, imagine the United States discovered a new nation. Do you know any precedents for such a thing?"

"A new nation, eh? Terra incognita. An interesting question." Dr. Pemberly went silent in thought. He steepled his fingers and sunk back into his couch, letting out a deep, slow hum. "Yes and no. Yes, there is precedent, though none recently, of course, and not by America. A Brit named James Cook wrapped up the last of the globe in the 1770s or so. The map is fairly complete."

His guests looked crestfallen. Steve said, "I see."

"Granted, every so often a mining expedition will come across a new tribe deep in the Congo or a similar wilderness. I suppose these communities qualify as nations by one definition of the word. But none of them are matters of diplomacy. These little tribes become de facto subjects of whichever proper state has sovereignty over their territory."

Diana responded with unexpected pep. "What about an island? Have you carved all the seas as well?"

Dr. Pemberly looked taken aback, either by her phrasing or by such a forceful question from a lady. "Well, no. There are unclaimed islands around, and I suspect some must be inhabited. But I confess, this is really outside of my expertise. Perhaps you should try a cartographer or an anthropologist."

Captain Trevor pressed on, more gently than Diana. "That won't be necessary, Doctor. But humor us. Say there was an inhabited island found," he gestured vaguely, "In some sea somewhere. No one else owned it. What would the government do?"

"Not much. Any tribe hidden this long must be quite primitive." Captain Trevor cringed and glanced at Diana, but her expression remained pleasantly neutral. Pemberly didn't seem to notice. "Few of these isolated communities develop writing, let alone finer notions of statecraft. How would we conduct diplomacy? And over what issues? They never have the population or industry to carry weight in world affairs. Not in this century, anyway. I daresay we've met more than enough indigenous groups to prove that. Yes, I imagine we would simply leave them be."

Diana spoke again, eagerly. "Presume our island nation was sophisticated, Doctor, with writing and cultivation and architecture."

"Architecture? Like a city-state?"

She nodded. "Yes, a city-state home to thousands. A culture with scholars in every field of natural study and artists in every medium. And a standing army as brave and well-drilled as any Man could hope to muster."

Dr. Pemberly didn't glean her nuance on the capital M. He rubbed his chin and took a minute to consider this with the help of some port. "Mm. That would be most remarkable. But it is a bit late in the evening for intellectual exercises, my dear. If such a civilization existed, it must be on an island large and temperate enough to produce food for thousands. Yet it remains unknown? In two hundred years of global travel, it is irrational to think that no foreign vessel would see this island. If that weren't enough to refute the proposition, all coastal peoples that size invent boating. Why haven't we found a settlement made by one of its seafarers? After all, the Polynesians crossed the Pacific in Stone Age canoes."

Diana didn't know who or what Polynesians were. She added it to her list of topics to look up. Steve tapped his fingers on the wooden arm of the chair and made a face like he was deciding how to phrase something. "What if ... What if, Doctor, our hypothetical island was ... hidden."

"Hidden?" Dr. Pemberly chortled and had another sip of port, now enjoying the game. "Hidden how? By a wizard?"

Diana opened her mouth, but this time Steve cut her off. "By a unique weather system. Constant storms and mist obscure it for months at a time. Only the most modern vessels could hope to navigate though, and it's far away from any trade route so few captains would bother to try."

Dr. Pemberly picked up the thread. "And if our modern ships struggle to pass through, the islanders surely couldn't hope to leave. I'll admit that's a clever explanation, Captain, well done. Of course, I can't say how likely such a weather system is."

Diana spoke. "Regardless, how would the government proceed?"

"Well, we would send an envoy. If the islanders reacted favorably, we would learn the rudiments of their language and discuss a treaty to formalize relations. Then all sorts of possibilities arise. I imagine they would want to know about the rest of the world and its developments. Once an embassy and a proper port were built, I can think of groups that would quickly send teachers, missionaries, and surveyors. Depending on its location, the Navy might negotiate to set up a fueling station, perhaps even a base. Other great nations would want their own embassies and visitors. Once the locals learned of our systems of commerce, trade would be discussed. That means engineers, prospectors, loggers, farmers, fishermen, factory owners, maybe retailers in time. It would be very exciting, I'm sure."

His two guests sat in inscrutable silence. Steve finally opened his mouth but Diana beat him to it.

"Doctor, is there any way the government could recognize a nation secretly?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"What if it was suspected this island wouldn't react favorably to public attention? Could a formal treaty exist, but knowledge of the nation's existence stay limited to a minimum of authorities? Are officials formally obliged to share their discovery with the world?"

"I ... I ... No one has proposed such a thing. Keeping an entire nation a secret? In this day and age? I'm not sure that's even constitutional. I confess I wouldn't know where to start."

"How many people would need to be told for relations to be established, and who?"

"I would have to consider that." Dr. Pemberly scrutinized her more closely. He still couldn't place her accent, and he had heard most of them. "I'm sorry, Miss Diana, I meant to ask while we were making introductions, but may I inquire in what capacity you work with Captain Trevor?"

"Guide," Diana answered as Steve said, "Friends." They looked at each other awkwardly. She couldn't tell a fib to save her life. Steve faced the Director with a toothy smile. "Diana is a nurse at an Army hospital in DC, but she went to school for political affairs so lately I've recruited her as an assistant in this little research project I've been assigned."

"To study hypothetical diplomatic scenarios."

"Yes."

"Secretly."

"Yes."

"In the middle of the night."

"... Yes."

A diplomat had tact. "Ah."

The phone rang. Dr. Pemberly excused himself and went to his old rotary machine on the wall. "Hello? Yes? Yes?" He looked at Steve. "He is. Yes. Just a moment." Dr. Pemberly lowered the receiver. "Captain Trevor, there's an officer on the line who wishes to speak with you."

Diana looked curiously at Steve who shrugged and stood. Pemberly handed the phone to him returned to the his seat. "Hello? Captain Steven Trevor, USAAF. Yes. Yes. More or less. Just my service pistol. Yes. About twenty minutes from downtown. No, I can't say I'm familiar. Who? From who? What's a batman?"

Dr. Pemberly was busy enjoying his port, but when he heard this he spit the whole mouthful. Diana flinched, and the spray missed her by inches. Steve saw this but was still on the call.

"Okay. Yes. Yes. I see. I'll be careful, sir. Yes. As soon as I'm done. Goodnight." Steve hung up the phone and walked to his host. "Have something to share, Dr. Pemberly?"

"No, no, sorry."

Steve stood over the doctor with his arms akimbo. "Nothing about my call surprised you?"

"I couldn't help but overhear. I nearly imagined you said something about, well, the Batman."

Steve crossed his arms. "That name came up. Does it mean something to you?"

Dr. Pemberly was incredulous. "Mean something to me? How much time have you spent in Gotham City?"

"I've been though a few times. Not long. Why?"

His host's disposition turned gloomy and foreboding. Doctor Pemberly stared at the floor. "Whatever they want you to do, son, don't go."

"Now hold on, Doctor. You're a dutiful man, I'm sure you know how it is. I have important business. If you've heard of this Batman fella, I want the news and I want it now!" Diana had no idea what business Steve was talking about, but they supported each other. She moved to sit on the couch beside Dr. Pemberly and looked at him encouragingly. "Please, I'm sure we'll understand."

Dr. Pemberly held up his hands in defeat, no longer sounding like an Oxford don. "Fine. The Batman is sort of, uh, a legend here."

Steve frowned. "Tick-tock, Doc. I need more than that." Diana looked sharply at him and spoke softly, "What kind of legend?"

Dr. Pemberly turned to her. "He hurts people. Bad people. Maybe other people too. At least that's what they say. I heard he can slip through walls and has skin like a rhinoceros. Everyone with a cudgel and a grudge has been chasing him for years, but he's never been caught."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "You make him sound supernatural."

"Captain, I'm an educated man, we both know it's unbelievable, but yes, he is often styled as some sort of rageful demigod."

Diana's muscles stiffened. "I see." The remark slipped out a degree too coldly. Her family had a bone to pick with demigods.

Steve tugged at his coat and retrieved his hat from a hook. "I'm sure it's a moot point anyway. Let's go Diana, I have an errand to run. We'll be in touch, Doctor." He opened the front door.

Diana stood and shook Doctor Pemberly's hand with an apologetic smile. "Thank you so much for your time."

"My dear, I implore you, make sure he isn't about to do something stupid."

* * *

Back in the car, Steve was putting the key in the ignition when Diana grabbed his wrist. "Steven, what's going on?"

His mouth was a serious line. "Got a call from the General. There's an informant here in the city, Bert-something. His family was threatened tonight by a local anarchist who calls himself the Bat Man. I have to go pick Bert up." He turned the ignition. "And the General said to rush."

"Did he say anything else?"

"Not much. He did say this Bat character has had run-ins with the Army before. The meathead's dangerous."

She raised her eyes at him. He grinned with the self-assurance God grants fighter pilots. "It's fine. I'm more dangerous."

"Is there a reason the police can't assist?"

"Don't know. Didn't ask."

"Well, alright. We'll do this quickly then."

"We? Sorry, no can do, Angel. The hotel's almost on the way. I'll detour to drop you off."

She considered this for a long moment. "Hm. That sounds convenient. Where is this informant you need to rescue?"

"Tallest building on Twelfth Street, he said. In fact, can you reach that map under your seat? I'm not sure the best way there. The roads in this city make no sense."

She did as requested, taking a long look at it first. "Steve, this anarchist sounds like someone you should avoid. Drop me off here and you can arrive sooner."

"And leave you stranded in the middle of Gotham?"

"This is a safe-looking neighborhood. I'll flag a taxi. You know how quickly they stop for me."

"True."

"Come on, Captain Trevor. Go. You have a mission!"

He couldn't help but smile. "Got that right. Okay, Nurse Prince, I'll let you off here." He slowed and edged to the curb. "Take care of yourself."

"You too."

The car pulled away. She waved after him. Then she looked around. There was no one in either direction, only more quiet suburbia. A cluster of pines edged someone's front lawn nearby. She walked briskly and stood in their shadows.

Diana Prince held her arms out to her sides, made a quarter-turn as if winding to throw a discus, then began to spin. She turned like a top, faster and faster. Her hair slipped out of its bun and flapped around with her. On her third turn, there was a flash of groovy technicolor light and in Diana's place stood Wonder Woman.

* * *

Arturo Bertinelli stumbled out of his car, coughing and cursing as he tried in vain to wipe the last of the powder wafting off his shirt. He was triple-parked in front of a five-story apartment building called the Twelfth Street Arms.

The receptionist in the lobby jumped when Arturo burst through the entrance in his night clothes, covered in dust and sweat and carrying a revolver, but he said nothing. This reaction was completely expected. Arturo Bertinelli knew he could arrive in a bloody prison jumpsuit and none of the building's staff would blink. Not only did the Bertinellis own the Twelfth Street Arms, the Bertinellis owned Twelfth Street. Arturo's eyes darted across the quiet lobby. The minute hand ticked around the dial of the grandfather clock. A fly buzzed near a wall sconce. He continued pulling ragged breaths as he studied the scene.

The receptionist smiled a smile which failed to reach his worried eyes. "Can I help you this evening, Mr. Bertinelli?"

"Yeah, if a, uh, a cop or a sailor or something comes through here talking about me, someone in a uniform or carrying a badge, you show them my room, got it? You point them my way."

"You got it, Mr. Bertinelli. I'll be on the lookout. Here's your key."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good kid." Arturo slapped him absentmindedly on the cheek and tipped a twenty-dollar bill. The receptionist took the bill in shock and kept up his stretched smile, not wanting to jinx the moment. He was holding a week's wages.

As if he now realized the younger man existed, Arturo turned and stared at him intently. Then he bent away and stomped towards the waiting elevator, tracking white dust on the red carpet. He stopped halfway, muttered, then changed course for the staircase. The receptionist leaned forward and peered discreetly after him, then he shared a shrug with the elevator attendant. He had been at the job four years. The boss never took the stairs.

Arturo was edgy like only a hunted man could be. After he shuffled up each flight in the flickering dim, he turned swiftly on the landing and aimed up the next flight. He was on a hair-trigger. The revolver's hadn't left his hand since he left his garage. He decided that if anything moved, he would blow it away. He didn't even care. Fortunately for the other residents, no one passed him. He made it out of the stairwell and slowly paced to the door of his apartment. While keeping as much of his body to the side as possible, he gingerly unlocked it, turned the knob, and pushed. As the oak door swung open, he hopped back and lifted his revolver.

Nothing jumped out at him. He checked the hallway one last time and entered. Arturo flicked the light switch. It was a sparse room: a little bed, two chairs, a rug on the cheap wooden floor, a naked bulb on the ceiling, and an end table with a telephone on top (the phone and power lines made the only holes in the brick wall). He closed the door, then he reached up and let his weight drag the sliding steel barrier down behind him. It was heavy. Most people would need a few tries, but he had practice. The latches clicked into place. He closed his eyes for what felt like the first time in an hour and tried to steady his breathing. He was safe for now.

Arturo collapsed into a chair, dropped the revolver on the end table. After a minute of simply resting, he opened the table's single drawer. There were a few provisions inside, crackers and canned meat and the like. He pulled out a bottle of wine. He needed it. He picked up a corkscrew and, after a moment, a glass. His addled mind had briefly considered drinking straight from the bottle. But no, he wasn't a barbarian.

He sipped the wine. It was liquid mercy. He began to relax, feeling a measure of control again.

Then the light went out.


	3. Caught

Arturo Bertinelli was a compact gentleman on the graying side of forty with a dark Italian complexion and a well-trimmed mustache, but this was hard to see through the blood on his face. He awoke in bleary confusion to the feeling of a swelled lip and a great pain in his right hand. He glanced down. When his vision condensed, he saw that two of his fingers were bent wrong. The image brought up a wave of shock and nausea. Like many who wake with blood on their face, Arturo wasn't sure where he was or how he got there. He was trying to form a thought when he was hefted into the air, spun, and confronted with a terrifying eyeless face so close that it monopolized his vision. He screamed. Worst of all was the smile, carved like a Jack-o'-lantern's grin and just as soulless. If his scream told the demon that he didn't want to see it any longer, his wish was granted. Arturo was tossed with the careless ease given to an empty wrapper. The world spun. His knees hit first, then his shoulder, then his broken hand struck and everything turned red and disconnected.

When he found his senses, he happened to focus on an unfamiliar pile of metal near his nose. With a strain, he rolled upright onto an elbow. From here he recognized the pile for what it was: his revolver, now disassembled down to its thrity-some component parts, the pins, levers, screws, and springs all lined up like a manufacturing blueprint.

Arturo saw the revolver and remembered.

He had been relaxing in a chair with some wine. He felt safe. Then the light went out. Before he could begin to register panic, a furious noise erupted beside him. The air cavitated. He was pelted with dense debris. Then the light went on, revealing a massive dark figure loomed over him. Drawing on a nerve and instinct that survived a hundred gangland fights, he lunged for his weapon, smoothly palmed the grip in his right hand, then twisted to take aim. But he was too slow. On the way around, a huge glove caught his wrist like a vise. Another glove seized the revolver and tore it backwards out of his grasp with his middle and index fingers still caught in the trigger guard. He tried to stand. The stolen revolver was lifted high, and the last thing he saw was it speeding towards his face.

The memory made Arturo vividly aware of the long bruise beside his nose and the streaks of crusting blood that spread sideways over his cheek and ear. He knew violence. He knew the blood dried that way because he had been horizontal while the wound was fresh. By the texture, he guessed he had been horizontal about five minutes.

A voice spoke calmly with titanic force, " **Sit.** "

Arturo looked up. The broken revolver was so bizarre that he had ignored the looming demon. It was obviously the Batman. They had never met, but all the myths agreed on a few traits: the cape, the pointed cowl, the white eyes, the symbol. And like they said, he was very tall. This was especially obvious from the floor. Arturo knew now why Batman lived in the shadows: standing under a bright bulb made him look more gaunt than fearsome - a tired man draped with a cloak. He wasn't grinning any longer. Now he was coldly serious. Arturo wasn't sure which was worse.

He realized there was a hole in the wall. If only he could buy a few seconds ...

" **Now.** "

Arturo pushed to his feet, staying low and wary. He faced his chair, pretended to stumble, and caught himself on the end table. With the burning in his old joints, this didn't take much acting. He could sense Batman looming just a pace behind him. Staying hunched, Arturo stepped back. Then he turned with uncanny speed, holding the corkscrew hidden close to his body, and stabbed it under Batman's ribs. The corkscrew bounced off Batman's abdomen with a metallic _plink_. They eyed each other. Batman blocked the next urgent stab then ended the exercise with a beautiful chokeslam.

* * *

The Dark Knight's largest equipment project was his suit. The current prototype added a set of metal plates to the padding and resembled, appropriately enough, a late medieval knight. Unlike a knight, Batman used aircraft-grade aluminum and bonded fiberglass. The suit was all but invincible below the chin to blunt or bladed trauma, a fact proven superbly on its few field-tests. The reason it remained a prototype was the weight. Being able to shrug off a crowbar to the liver wasn't worth a third of his sprint or long jump. If anything, it it was more durable than he needed. A trimmed variant would take time. Until then it stayed on the rack. He made an exception tonight because taking chances with the Four Families was suicide. He wasn't expecting trouble, but he was dressed for war all the same.

There was another reason for the armor. Tonight would be his first success towards a dream he had chased for years, and wearing his finest gear felt right. The spine of the Batman myth was that no one was beyond justice, but on any given day this simply wasn't true. There were powerful figures who committed their sins at such a distance that the strings would never be found and who eased through the legal system at a whim. It was why he had never seriously considered using his talents against warlords and other global monsters; there was no court for these men. The only way to hurt them was a line he would not cross. At least America was built on a foundation of the impersonal Law. On any given day some figures couldn't be touched, but in the long run? In the long run, the juror and the voter could bring down giants. They just needed a strong case and a reminder that they could.

This was what he told himself. It was the conviction that kept him going through every brutal night and every death and every setback. Batman was a perfectionist with a fanatical sense of symbolism, so the only way he could be satisfied that he had vindicated his belief was if he brought down the biggest giant of all. In Gotham, that meant the Families. Permanently convicting even a minor lieutenant was unthinkable. They guarded themselves on every front. For years, he couldn't find a weakness.

The problem wasn't just corruption. They couldn't buy or threaten every single judge, attorney, cop, agent, councilman, sheriff, and politician in the city, no matter how hard they tried. Gotham was too big. If the Four Families were as destructive as any other gang, the law would eventually bring them to justice. So they stayed safe. For starters, most of their income was now legitimate. When they did engage in crime, it was the quiet, victimless type - collusion, kickbacks, insider trading, and the like. The complicated schemes they specialized in were much harder to catch than small, obvious crimes. Anyone could rob a gas station, and prisons were full of robbers. But it took connections and expertise to skim the Sanitation Union's pension, and a good union scam was a prosecutor's nightmare.

That wasn't to say the Families didn't still profit from old-fashioned street felonies. They did, handsomely. They just had someone else do the dirty work. The actual perpetrators (say, a store selling untaxed cigarettes in the back) gave a cut of the loot to someone supporting them (say, a tobacco wholesaler) who gave a cut to an organization that owned or regulated the supporters (say, a bank or customs office) which was itself part-owned in some complicated way by a Family associate. All these steps were obstacles to an investigator, and most of the transactions were legal. By the time the loot reached the top, it had washed through so many jurisdictions and balance sheets that the stink was utterly gone. It was said the Families kept two accountants and five lawyers for every made man. They didn't invent Gotham's criminal feudal system, but they did master it. In a way, conspiracy and laundering was their real vocation.

Comparing their gift with this vocation between the Four, the Maronis and Nobilios were respectably average, usually working a racket at least two steps removed. The Maronis were larger and more creative, but both paled next to the Falcones. The Falcones were the first among equals in their pact, and here they played on another level entirely. Falcone money could change hands seven times before it reached their accounts, often crossing borders in the process. To lead an empire so discreetly yet with such firm control required nothing short of genius. The more one studied the clan, the easier it was to suspect that they had the most sophisticated management team in America.

The Bertinellis were the opposite. This wasn't their fault, more or less. They always had less territory, less muscle and frankly less brains than their peers, and this fueled a deep insecurity to prove they _were_ peers. It wasn't an inferiority complex. If you weren't a big shot, sooner or later you were food. They had eaten enough rivals themselves to know that. The Bertinellis were well aware that if they hoped to match the money and respect the other families made, they had to take more risks, even if this made them crude and hasty by comparison. They entered businesses the others wouldn't touch, they set up rackets with only a single middleman, and once in a blue moon the most desperate members even pulled street crimes themselves.

Learning this last tiny detail helped Batman solve the puzzle more than all his years of plotting combined.

A predator hunting large herd animals faced a difficult proposition. Herds were content to stay together and were invincible as long as they did. The predator's only hope was to find a straggler: prey too old or injured to keep up, too headstrong to stay close, or simply shunned by herd politics. Against sufficiently careful herds that looked after their stragglers, a predator's only chance to eat was the last option, the outcast. But if the prey was human, sometimes the predator didn't need to wait for an outcast. Sometimes an outcast could be made.

* * *

Arturo spent a few minutes on the floor. Someone had used his spine for kettle drums. People in the corridor were knocking now and trying to talk though the door, their voices muted by the metal. Arturo didn't bother calling out. The barrier made them useless, and besides, if seeking nearby help was an option, he wouldn't be here. Batman seemed indifferent to the noise. Arturo strained to his feet with the help of the wall into the chair with as much dignity as he could manage.

Batman watched him. No one tried harder than a felon to act tough, and the Dark Knight was in a rare position to test them. He learned, for instance, that some of the biggest punks were cardboard. One flyweight jab to the snout and they were off like the Kentucky Derby. But most men and women who stole and cheated for a living could suffer a few lumps, especially those born into a family business and those born without family to speak of. And then there were the rare few carved from wood. The hard cases who didn't know the meaning of quit. It fascinated Batman that, for all his experience, he couldn't pick one out of a lineup. Anyone might be brass to the core. They came in every size, shape, color, history, and walk of life.

But there were still trends. One of the steadiest groups, stone cold men of honor who didn't rat for nobody, was the Old Guard Sicilians, the ones who ran the streets before the streets had cars. Any still in the game now went beyond tough; they were rawhide. Batman didn't expect Arturo to crack anytime soon.

To his credit, the man finally accepted the situation. Lesser crooks made a show even after they were beat, acting defiant or sullen, but Arturo just stared coolly as he sucked in air. That was one advantage of dealing with old pros. No doubt Arturo had done this before, as the interrogator or the captive and likely both. He knew the rules. This practicality could help or challenge Batman's goal. The Dark Knight had planned his pitch very carefully.

He began to pace around the chair. Arturo didn't turn to watch him, possibly from neck pain.

" **In June, eighteen **Ukrainian university** students escaped the German invasion by sailing to Istanbul. They traveled across Turkey by rail and continued south through Iraq to the Persian Gulf. The students boarded a freighter to Cape Town, then another to Gotham City. But here their journey's incredible luck failed. Immigration officials detained them when they stepped off the ship. They had no papers. They didn't know anyone. It's likely none spoke English. The refugee process was backlogged for months, and until then they were trapped in limbo. But someone saved them that evening. The authorities were given false passports and visas so they could enter the country." **

Batman paused to check Arturo's reaction. He had none.

 **"I don't know where the students spent their first two nights on American soil, but on the third they were seen with you near a tenement you own in the upper Narrows. Two men arrived before dawn on a bus. They paid you stacks of bills hidden in a grocery bag, and you led the students onto the bus. They disappeared.** "

Arturo looked bored.

**"These eighteen foreign nationals surfaced a week later at Swenson Corrugated's tin factory in Bludhaven, all clearly victims of abuse. Many were bruised. One young woman wore a foot cast. They were forced to work twelve hour days and slept in a locked basement, all so Swenson Corrugated could shave nine cents from a can of soup. You knew this. In fact, you received weekly compensation delivered by courier to your office in Bayside. I assume the money was to purchase your continued silence, but maybe it was a down payment on future labor.**

**"The students didn't stay long. They had been sold to a copper mine in New Mexico. They didn't spend much time there either, but this time the trail was a dead end. The mine had no hints to where they are now, but are sites had plenty of evidence. The District Attorney's office and the Justice Department are gathering confessions and building a case as we speak."**

Arturo's cool showed a crack. He squinted at the wall and frowned testily. The noises outside the door seemed to fade to a buzz in his ears.

 **"I'm not shocked by what you did. The only surprise was how easy it was to find. The Bertinellis aren't especially bright,"** Arturo snorted. **"But they cover their tracks. They scrub evidence. They buy witnesses or make them disappear. This sort of cleanup is too much work for one man, of course, but you could've brought in a crew any time you wanted. You didn't. The rest of the Bertinellis didn't help you because they don't know."**

A bead of sweat ran down Arturo's forehead, across the long scab, and off his chin.

**"You were desperate, so you found an ugly job even other thugs wouldn't touch. It solved all your problems."**

Arturo had been desperate. His dancehall was closed for water damage, work was slow at the fish processing plant, and he had bungled a huge deal that spring selling dry cleaners to an outfit from Central City. His bookkeepers said he had just enough cash to either pay his men or pay the Family's cut. He couldn't afford both. Missing either would ruin him. His boys would jump ship if they didn't get their compensation, and cousin Franco would take away his best gigs or bench him altogether if he didn't add his share to the pot.

**"But you were sloppy. You left the prosecutors plenty of proof, not that they need it. A slaver is the darkest sort of villain. This isn't just a crime, it's an outrage. The warrants will come soon, and the jury will burn you at the stake. You're going to spend the rest of your life behind bars.  
**

"If I was guilty of something, ya lunatic, which I ain't, I have a few friends with-"

****"If you had any real respect in your organization or any favors to trade, you wouldn't be here. And it wouldn't matter if you did. This isn't a con you can fix with bribes or blackmail.** Anyone who comes to your defense will be in the spotlight of the inquisition. Your acquittal would cause riots in the streets. The judge would be lynched. The Slavic community would burn down City Hall." **

The Families looked after their own. No one wanted to lose respect by sharing matters that should be handled privately, but if a member faced a real problem, then there was no hesitation or debate. The Family fell into lockstep until the problem was erased. This was their blood oath. But the oath wasn't absolute. No one felt obliged to save a fool whose mistakes made them all look bad. Loyalty wasn't stupid. The Bertinellis might have been the crudest of the Families, but you could fill a graveyard with the rivals who underestimated them over the years. They wouldn't have earned a place among the Four if they weren't vastly more ruthless and pragmatic than the typical pack of jackals.

**"That kind of notoriety is bad business. Your own cousin won't lift a finger at your trial. I woudn't be suprised if he punishes you himself for keeping secrets. You're a pariah, Arty, and you know it. That's why you're here alone and your wife and children are in hiding - not the behavior of a man who trusts his benefactors.**

Arturo eventually responded in a low voice just short of a snarl. "Why are you here? What do you want?"

" **I want to give you one last choice. Tell me where the students are. Where were they taken after New Mexico?** "

"Where's the choice? Tell you or I eat some teeth? That the choice? Or maybe I get a big nap in a ditch somewhere, but I heard you don't bump off nobody. Besides, why would I know?"

Batman stopped his pacing in front of Arturo's chair.

**"The managers at the tin factory and the mine had no idea where the workers went. You didn't just deliver the captives, you're their agent. You know where they went because you rented them out. Every day those refugees remain in bondage is another scar on your reputation, and their current employer might decide their lives are a liability once news of the case leaks out. Maybe a week with a police interrogator will get you to share, but I don't have time. So this is your choice: tell me where they are now or don't. I won't hurt you either way."**

" _Pff_. Sure."

**"But I will give you some advice. Tell me where they are now, and you might dodge eighteen charges of accessory to homicide, and your proceedings can begin. If the case starts soon, the DA will try you first; their prosecution is nearly ready. That means a Gotham judge, someone you know. You'll probably end up in Blackgate. They have decent visitation rights. Marie and the kids might appreciate that."**

"And if I don't?"

**"Then the investigation drags on. The case happens whether or not the abductees are found, but by then the Justice Department will have priority. That means a hostile courtroom and most likely a sentence to Golgotha Federal Penitentiary upstate. You may have heard of it. You may know, for instance, that among the many notorious inmates are seven members of the OUN, a Ukrainian nationalist group, all serving fifty-year terms for trying to attack the Soviet consulate. They hold a dim view of anyone who oppresses their countrymen. I'm told they have quite a following with the other convicts."**

Arturo's eyes unfocused.

**"You were right when you said I've never taken a life, but your cellmate may not be such a pacifist."**

"You're bluffing. Whatever you think I did, you got no proof."

For a moment, a shadow of Batman's grin returned. **"No, I do. Let me convince you."**

* * *

Three minutes earlier.

Wonder Woman landed deftly on the hood of a fancy Lincoln triple-parked in front of the Twelfth Street Arms with her face puckered sideways at the stench. The air in Gotham was acrid and damp, like the entire city was downwind of a tannery. Pollution was simple enough to understand, but she was still getting used to it in practice. At least the air was better on the ground, and it would be better still indoors. That is, unless people were smoking. Burnt tobacco and phlegm were also hard to tolerate. Regardless, she had a job to do.

The receptionist in the lobby was busy smiling at his new twenty-dollar bill when Wonder Woman burst through the entrance in her short blue culottes, red and white boots, red breastplate gilded with an eagle, golden tiara, long silver bracelets, and golden belt carrying a shining cord on her hip. She jogged to the reception desk and leaned over it. "Sir, I need your help!"

The receptionist blinked at her mutely, looked down at his money, and decided he was going back to church this week.


	4. Rising Action

A flock of neighbors clustered around Arturo Bertinelli's apartment door. Some were drawn by the the ' _thump'_ of heavy objects hitting the floor. Most were drawn by the screaming. They had arrived in their night clothes carrying rolling pins, canes, shoes, and other domestic weapons. It was that sort of building. When the boldest of the flock, an octogenarian named Gretchen, knocked on the door, there was no answer. A few neighbors tried to yell inside, but no one responded **.** Soon they heard a low, unfamiliar voice in the room, speaking to another occupant. The voice spoke for minutes, but it was too soft and deep for anyone to understand.

The neighbors faced a dilemma. There knew exactly who owned the room (no one else had a brick facade), and they knew that whatever was happening inside was bad. But was it the kind of bad that needed the police? Or was it the kind of bad that definitely should not involve the police? That was the problem with living around wise guys: they had plenty of expectations, but they weren't the type to share. No one published a civilian handbook for this sort of grey area. The mob didn't offer a yearly seminar.

As they debated, the stairwell door was kicked open and Wonder Woman leaped in. Shocking a Gothamite was next to impossible, but she came close. The flock watched her approach at a brisk jog. Wonder Woman stopped in front of them, arms akimbo, and proclaimed, "Don't worry, I'm here to assist."

They stared at her mutely. Someone coughed. After a moment, Gretchen hobbled forward and squinted at her. "Who're you s'posed to be?"

"I'm sorry, this is Mr. Bertinelli's room, yes?"

The flock shared suspicious glances. Gretchen answered, "Maybe."

There was a ripping noise and heavy footsteps inside the apartment. Then a pained moan.

Wonder Woman gave her a look. Gretchen shrugged. "Yeah."

Wonder Woman went to the door and tried to open it. A young man informed her unhelpfully that it was locked. She set her arm and tried again. After a moment of struggle, the latch broke through the strikeplate, and the door swung open. Her audience raised a collective eyebrow. Behind the door she found a barrier of overlapped steel slats. Wonder Woman turned and pointed at it. "Is this normal?" The neighbors shook their heads. Wonder Woman turned back, crouched, and slid her fingers under the edge of a slat. She took a deep breath.

* * *

Forty seconds ago.

" **Your fingerprints match this set on the foreman's satchel. You've also touched this paper I found inside your bookkeeper's trash can, dated the same day the foreman's messenger stopped by your office. It lists a sum of bill denominations. You deposited that same sum three days later at the Manfred Savings and Loan on Union Street. It says so on this bank receipt.** "

"That- that was in a locked box in my study! You were in my house!"

" **Prove it.** "

"You, you- but you're no cop. Yeah, big guy, none of that will be admissible in court! That's tamperin'. How about that, huh?"

Batman gently shook his head. Arturo would have called it pitying if his fingers weren't bent sideways. " **The court will find that due process was followed to the letter, with all evidence the product of routine police work.** **We both know these matters can be arranged.** " The grin appeared again. " **After all, I don't exist.** "

Arturo looked furiously at the papers laid on the end table. He leaped out of his chair and grabbed the pile with his good hand. Then he used his mouth to rip them in half. Then in half again. Then he crumpled the shreds into a ball, dropped it, and stepped on them as hard as he could. Batman watched this effort quietly until Arturo stopped to pant.

" **Those weren't the only copies.** "

Arturo fell to his knees and moaned, his head bent down in exhaustion.

Batman gave him a moment to reflect. " **Convinced yet?** "

" _Si animale sporco_. You can't threaten me, ya lunatic. You don't- You're nobody. You're just nobody."

" **Think it over. I have all night.** "

Batman heard a sharp _creak_ of bent metal and splintered wood. Someone had opened the locked door to the hallway. Forcing a latch through an old interior door frame was simple as far as strongman tricks went. Fortunately for doors, very few people were strongmen. Unfortunately for him, one had apparently joined the bystanders. He mentally shrugged; it was a slight bump in his plan, but ultimately a moot point. The door didn't matter. Batman made a note to check if any neighbors were weightlifters next time.

As he committed this to memory, he heard a much louder noise - a long agonized shriek of straining metal.

Batman turned this time. The latches that locked the barrier to the floor were quivering. He watched slack-jawed.

_That wasn't possible._

The two tempered steel latches were drilled deep into the room's brick foundation. He could hardly fathom the effort it would take to pull them out – at least a thousand pounds of vertical force, maybe two. A car jack might do it eventually, but there was no gap under the barrier to position one. No, something had simply gripped the steel wall and lifted - a feat that would challenge a silver-back gorilla. It rose two inches, then four, then eight. A pair of red boots appeared.

His mind raced, but his thoughts kept crashing into dead ends. Physics was one of Batman's weakest academic disciplines. He had mastered enough for practical uses like chemistry and ballistics, but the more esoteric branches, those strange new ideas about cosmic rays or the nature of time, were never worth his time. He regretted that now. Obscure insights on relativity might be helpful here, because his little Newtonian brain said that what he saw was impossible. He had heard rumors of impossible things in the far corners of the world, some a little too sensible, but he had always been a skeptic. No one could do this. Nothing could do this. Nothing could do this. Logic failed. He broke into a cold sweat.

Arturo Bertinelli had already crawled to the far corner and hid behind the bed. It was his first wise decision that night. The last person who broke into his safe house with their bare hands hadn't been friendly. Arturo watched the steel barrier shake. He saw Batman stare at the door with the static intensity of a starving wolf defending a kill (something he had actually seen once on a hunting trip - the beast had been terrifying). If the rumors were right, Batman was about to do something devastating and unexpected. Arturo held his breath, waiting with morbid anticipation.

The Dark Knight turned and sprinted away through the hole in the wall.

That was unexpected.

* * *

Wonder Woman's body trembled from her shoulders to her knees as she lifted the latches out of their foundation. All the weight was on her fingertips, and she was genuinely concerned that all the lifting would push her feet through the floor. Fortunately, she happened to be standing on the edge of the bricks that fortified the bottom of the apartment. After raising the barrier just over her knees, the deep rods securing the latches ripped out, and the rest slid up like a feather.

She found a small room with a disheveled older man trying to hide behind a bed and a large hole in the wall. The neighbors peered around her in silence. Wonder Woman stepped in. With a cold anger, she saw that his face and clothes were stained with blood, and he was favoring an injured hand. She took a knee beside him.

"Mr. Bertinelli?"

Despite his obvious shock, the man's eyes were sharp. He scrutinized her. "Who wants ta know?"

She respected that. The government was lucky to find such a careful and loyal asset. "Don't worry, I'm with the military." Mindful of the crowd, she leaned in and whispered, "Was the Bat Man here?"

He grimaced. "Just ran off when you broke my door."

"Well, I'm to bring you to safety, let's-"

"Na, na, no. Listen honey, you look set for a brawl. Go after him."

"Sir, I'm-"

"The guy's a public menace. He did this to me laughing, and he said he was gonna do worse all over town!"

She nodded seriously and stood. "Help is coming. Stay safe."

"Run quick, toots."

Wonder Woman ran. The room beyond the hole was much the same, only there were dozens of bricks stacked in front of the door, and the window was open. She looked out into the dark and smell of the night. The window was in the back of the Twelfth Street Arms above an alley. The roof across was ten feet away and ten feet down. She stepped onto the windowsill and peered around. There was some decorative stonework to her left, between her window and next one. Wonder Woman quickly noticed a thin rope tied to a sturdy peak in the decoration. She followed it with her eyes. It was difficult to see in the dark, but the rope stretched loosely across the alley to a chimney on the far roof below.

Wonder Woman leaped, heedless of the frightening drop. She landed nimbly on the the other roof. _Where now?_

Cities were a terribly alien environment, Gotham in particular. She had spent months in Washington, but the nation's capital was a sleepy village compared to this hive. Half the inhabitants seemed either a wretch or a villain, and everything was covered in scum. But she was a huntress, Artemis-blessed, and no mere brute would best her tonight. She squatted and examined the gravel roof. If he came across the rope, he had to have landed very close to the chimney that anchored it. The gravel here was fairly soft and thick. Indeed, Wonder Woman quickly spied a pair of foot-sized depressions, with shallower copies moving ahead. The gait was long: he was either running or eight feet tall. She followed the tracks at a brisk speed, stopping to check the path in short pauses. Between this building and the next was an alley so narrow even a regular man could jump over, and the tracks didn't slow near the edge. She swiftly picked up the trail on the other side. As she grew more confident where the steps headed, she sped up until she covered the distance at an uncanny speed.

But then the roof ended, and the next building had sloped shingles instead of gravel. She leaped up and looked around. There were no more roofs to reach from here, and shingles didn't leave a trail. He could have climbed down in any direction. She hopped to the top of a nearby radio mast. Her Bat Man had a minute's head-start, surely he wasn't too far away. Wonder Woman was now quite a distance from residential Twelfth Street. This was a place of industry and closed for the night. It was more spacious here. The architecture was long and bland. Unlike most of the city, parking lots were plentiful. She knew by the light of the full moon that the roads were wide and empty of pedestrians; only a few trucks passed though.

There seemed to be too much open ground for anyone to hide. A crowded street with a thousand warrens to duck inside would have made pursuit impossible, and the city had an endless supply of them, yet he came this way. Perhaps he feared crowds as much as he feared her. Wonder Woman forced herself to relax and focused her senses. This was the highest point in the vicinity with many clear lines of sight. She soaked in the scenery, priming her eyes to notice any movement.

 _There!_ Two hundred yards away, a side door of an unfinished building opened. Wonder Woman stepped off the radio mast, grabbed a drainpipe, slid to the ground, and crossed the distance in seventeen seconds.

* * *

Batman's normal mental state was beyond what most people could experience. He possessed a crystalline clarity that couldn't be shaken or overwhelmed. Most minds worked like a rowboat in a gale. He ordered his thoughts like a set of bookshelves in a quiet room. That was the norm. Batman's current mental state was more like someone stuck in an elevator with a bee hive. He had taken precautions against every possible interference tonight, so of course tonight was when he met the impossible. This was the first time that he had to sweat in his new armor. It made the joints very uncomfortable. Batman cursed the pile of scrap. Not for the discomfort, that meant nothing, but for the burden. He valued agility over every other physical trait, and now he would struggle to make a college track team.

He was so distracted that he momentarily forgot what he was doing. This husk of a building would eventually be a GothCorp frozen food plant. It was in the middle stages of construction, and its disposal room had two industrial-size pipes descending to a low level of the sewers but not yet connected to the machines. The Gotham City underground was easily the deepest and most diverse in the hemisphere. To paraphrase Victor Hugo, Gotham had another Gotham under herself; a city of sewers; which had its streets, its crossings, its squares, its blind alleys, its arteries, and its circulation. The old city had been digging basements, tunnels, mines, drains, bunkers, cisterns, and catacombs for hundreds of years. A traveler could move everywhere if they knew how but wouldn't be going anywhere if they didn't. He wasn't sure what the being at the apartment was capable of - he didn't even know if he was being chased - but if there was one place where he could lose pursuit no matter how strong or fast his pursuer, it was the underground, and these pipes would lead him to the biggest hub in the district.

Batman slid over the stacked conveyor belts and crawled through half-finished walls. In little time he made it to the disposal room. The openings of the two pipes were in the floor, covered with a stack of heavy crates. He pushed, moving the crates at an agonizing pace. Before he could finish, he heard a noise from outside. He disappeared.

* * *

Wonder Woman rammed through the door shoulder-first. It took six steps to slow down. She found herself in some sort of manufactory, pitch dark save for the occasional hole in the roof. She found a switch that turned on a scattering of nearby lights, but it didn't help much. The building had two tall stories and was segmented by many walls, but most of the walls and floor were skeletal, showing the building's viscera in the strange frames of Man's architecture. She could glimpse nearly the length of the interior if it was bright enough to see. Wonder Woman walked ahead, confident that none could slip by her keen senses this close.

* * *

Batman hung from the ceiling in a dark corner. Also like his namesake, he listened intently to his surroundings. Light footsteps walked randomly though the building. Its gait sounded like a woman. Batman remembered the red boots, and his breath caught in his throat. After several minutes, the footsteps neared his hiding place. Batman reached silently into his utility belt and gripped a dull red capsule the size of a bar of soap. A humanoid shape soon stepped into the room, each slow footstep a drumbeat in the silence. It passed under a patch of moonlight, and he furrowed his brow in disbelief. Watching above and upside-down, he could see simulacra of arteries on its neck. Its chest region rose and fall as if it breathed. But it couldn't possibly be organic life. It's nasal-form twitched when it passed through dust, and the pupils of its eye-analogues contracted when it stepped into the light. But it couldn't possibly be human. The being glanced around the room. His nerves sparked like firecrackers. Then its eyes crossed over him. An eternity passed. But the being didn't react. It continued around a corner.

Batman waited forty-eight seconds before he dared to draw a breath. Since he first saw the steel barrier rise, Batman's imagination had run wild. He recalled beings from fiction and myth during his escape. If his aggressor had one unnatural power, it might have any of them. All the rules were gone. It might fly. Read minds. Stop his heart with a thought. But now solid lines were returning to the world. Now he knew it couldn't sense his presence in an extraordinary way. It couldn't see in the dark. It couldn't or wouldn't tear down the building to force him out. It appeared to feel the same gravity. He could work with this. Fiction and myth also said that even the supernatural could be slain. He returned the dull red capsule to his belt and dropped to the floor.

It was a twelve foot fall. He shifted to make a noiseless three-point landing, a hand and both feet, but he hadn't practiced acrobatics in the armor. His left leg buckled and the metal kneepad struck the cement with an awkward _klunk_.

The footsteps in the far room stopped. Then they started again, fast, loud, and coming his way. He jumped atop a tall spool of wire then wall-kicked to a beam on the ceiling where he could swing up to the second floor. Then he scaled a pillar to the roof. Batman sprinted as a voice behind him yelled, "Stop!" He ignored this and was nearly at the edge of the roof when he sensed motion above. He rolled to the side. The being leaped overhead in a somersault and landed ten feet in front of him. He rose to a low crouch. It turned, placing it's hand-assemblies on its hip-zone.

"Stop."

So it spoke. Batman let his cape drape over his arms and stood in silence.

"The Bat, I presume. You're a public menace, and I'm here to take you to justice."

It had a woman's voice, confident, not hostile, but certainly not happy with him. Whatever lab or dimension it came from made mistakes with the language: it's English had a strong and unfamiliar accent. Batman looked at it for a moment, then he turned and headed towards another edge of the roof.

It took a step forward. "I don't want to hurt you."

He kept walking away. " **Then don't.** "

It fumed and began to jog towards him. Before it could take a third step, Batman turned and, in the time it took the cape to shift aside, threw two batarangs. The being stood its ground. In a blur, both missiles ricocheted off the shiny bracers on its arms. Neither party moved as weapons bounced harmlessly on the metal roof.

It made a small smile. "You can't touch me."

With a flick, Batman produced six more batarangs. The being lifted an eyebrow and raised its arms for a fight. The Dark Knight dashed forward. He threw the three in his left hand then the three in his right. The being blocked the first three were the same incredible reflexes. The next three blades missed its body by yards. As the being finished deflecting the first set, it realized the batarangs that missed were boomeranging back along three different arcs. The thing pivoted just in time to pivot and intercept the boomerangs. Then it turned to face him again, but Batman had already closed the distance. His flying knee drove straight into its breastplate.

Batman discovered that at least the being had the same mass as a real woman. His alloy knee connected squarely with its chest and knocked it flat. Inertia was a beautiful thing. He landed but tripped on his first step. Even lying prone, it had reached back and caught his ankle. The being stood, still holding his ankle in a solid grip. He couldn't shake it, so he used the supported ankle as a anchor and pistoned his other heel to its inner thigh just above its knee. This was a surefire wayto break a normal knee, but he was quickly realizing that he couldn't win this gently, and with an ember of enthusiasm, that he didn't have to.

The being's knee stayed intact, but it winced and let go of him. Batman sprung to his feet and nearly walked into a punch. The volley came fast, as fast as any pugilist he'd faced before. They were about the same height, so it had ample reach, and each strike landed like a tire iron - battering his arms and shoulders as he weaved around. The armor prototype was designed to be hit by tire irons, but it still stung. Finally, the being landed a side-kick to the gut that sent him stumbling backwards, then a high kick that clipped his mouth. Batman finally raised his arms, but it slipped under them and tackled him **,** landing on top of Batman. But for all its speed and strength, this was a mistake. Maybe it underestimated him; he didn't care. Arm speed meant much less in a grapple. And its formidable psudeo-muscles had nothing to push against without leverage. Before Batman slid to a stop, he gripped an arm and pulled into a triangle choke. The being seemed to breathe air. He could fix that. They rolled as it struggled to get out of the choke. It hit him repeatedly with its free arm, but it couldn't reach his face, so he held on through the pain, squeezing the choke tighter.

It managed to get its feet under it. It stood, lifting him bodily into the air, then slammed him down against the roof. He held on. It lifted him and slammed him again, then again, then again. He let go on the fourth impact. It stepped hard on his chest. The armor took the blow, but it still shook him. He rolled away to his feet and tried an uppercut. It caught his wrist in that marble grip. He threw a cross with his other fist, but that wrist was caught too. He leaned back and, with extraordinary flexibility, brought a leg up and kicked the being in the chin three times. With a bark of frustration, it forced him to his knees, then swung him by the wrists into the brick wall of a roof stairwell entrance. It pulled him to his feet against it, pinning his arms against the wall.

"Yield!"

Batman panted and didn't resist. A membrane of blood covered his teeth from his cut lip and there were bruises across his face. The being's own flawless features had been marred. Its neck was still tinged red from the choke, there were small gashes on its face and limbs, and its hair was askew. Overall, far less damage then he would expect from a person. It seemed to gather its composure.

"You will come peaceably, scofflaw. Do you understand?"

The being held his gauntlets against the wall, but it didn't hold his hands. The heavy gloves were stiff and the wrists were lined with steel bands made to hold their shape against pressures that would easily crush his bones of his wrist. The Dark Knight had a well-honed gift for legerdemain; it was no effort to slip his hands through the opening. With his hands free, it was another simple slight of hand to drive his thumbs into his captor's eyes.

Whatever it was made of, that still hurt. It roared and thrashed, dropping his gauntlets a moment too late. He grimaced through a blow to his shoulder that cracked the armor plate. Leaning forward, he gouged in further, using the eye sockets as purchase to grip the face with his other fingers. Employing this leverage, he threw its head into the brick wall. The head bounced off in a mist of powdered clay, and he volleyed it back with a punishing elbow strike to the temple.

In the pause between breaths, he marveled that its skin, _her_ skin, felt like any woman's: same weight, same warmth, same follicles, pulse, and texture. He saw that she bled from a new cut on her forehand where his sharp elbow raked her. And it was certainly blood. He knew blood. Maybe some paranormal magic could fake a voice and a figure and a mind, but blood? That smell and that heat couldn't be faked. She was, by any sane approximation, human.

With inhuman speed, she caught her balance and twisted with a perfectly proficient back fist that would have taken off his jaw if he hadn't been waiting for it from the start. He leaned just outside her swing and thrust up a batarang -this one long and thin, more a stiletto than a throwing star. Her momentum sunk the blade into her fist. Incredibly, she kept swinging, ignoring the steel point in her flesh which fell out at its zenith. She threw a left hook, but he was already counterpunching to that arm, stabbing another batarang through her inner elbow, hitting the soft curve under her bicep. This one he twisted, then hastily pulled out to block her right jab. His timing was off, and the weapon fell out of his grasp against her shiny bracer.

The jab staggered him, but he could sense this fierce retaliation was running out of steam. Incredibly, her eyes seemed basically unharmed, but were bloodshot and unfocused. She was holding her left arm low, suffering the elbow wound. Her next kick was amateur. He let it glance off his ribs as he stepped up to bat. His arms were too close for her to grab or push away. He reached up and slapped her ears sharply, then drew a hand back, turned his shoulder, and smashed the heel of his palm across the side of her nose.

As she spun from the blow, briefly exposing her back, Batman crouched low. In a single motion, he produced another thin batarang from his belt and slammed the point into the soft tendon behind her knee like he was burying a tent stake. Again, her skin felt human, but the flesh underneath was inhumanly tough. Even at that fragile spot, her tendons had the durability of mixed cement: smooth and supple as a muscle but so paradoxically dense that only the most forceful strike with a sharp tool could hope to nick it. But the Dark Knight never lacked for strength. His own mortal tendons strained as he sunk the blade deep and pulled it sideways through the joint. For any human and most large mammals this would instantly collapse the leg, but Batman took no chances. He left the blade and seized her foot and ankle with both hands. Batman stood and stepped back, keeping her off balance, then he torqued the foot around like the handle of a socket wrench.

She made a noise through gritted teeth that might have been a cry. He dropped the sprained ankle, hugged her just above the hips, heaved, and arced backwards into a German Suplex. Her shoulders struck the roof, but he didn't bother looking. He leaped up and sprinted for the edge. Just yards away, something caught him. His upper body was yanked back like a dog on a leash and crashed with his legs in the air. When his vision cleared, he saw a shimmering golden cord around chest, over one shoulder and under the other armpit. He rose to a knee and tried to slip it off, but he was pulled down again.

He saw the woman approach, slow and angry, but with hardly a limp. She held the end of the golden cord that had been looped at her side. Batman squinted at this puzzle. How had she snared him? There was no throw with trajectories that made sense. He crawled backwards on one arm until his shoulder hit the low barrier around the edge of the roof. By then she stood over him. They eyed each other coldly.

"Why did you attack Arturo Bertinelli?"

It sounded as a much a command as a question. Batman tried to respond with something shrewd and deceptive, but he felt a sudden itch in his face and throat. Horrified, Batman realized some foreign presence was soothing his mind and sapping his focus. His lips quivered. Before he knew it, he was speaking.

" **He's a dangerous kidnapper. I was trying to coerce him into revealing where he had taken his victims.** "

Whatever the lady with the lasso was expecting, that wasn't it. Her mouth fell half-open for a few moments and she watched him strangely. Batman couldn't have cared less. He was busy with the shock of what just happened. Was this some seizure? Had he been hypnotized?

She finally decided something and spoke again. "What is your name?"

The itch in his face returned, and he felt his hostility being gently smothered. He clenched his jaw, but before he knew it sound slipped out. " **... I'm Batman.** "

She rolled her eyes. "What is your given name? What were you called at birth?"

Batman tried to keep it in. His face turned red and his cheeks puffed and his head shook. A vein twitched in his neck. " **... Bbbb ... Bbbbbbbrrrrr ...** "

"Yes?"

He raised a trembling hand up, as if pleading. " **Bbbbrrrrrrrrrr ...** "

"What is it?"

He cupped the hand and struck himself in the throat. His voice collapsed to a choking gargle.

The woman stared in astonishment. She pulled tight on the cord. "No! Speak!"

He grinned as he choked, showing the blood on his teeth. She could have sworn he was trying to laugh. The woman lifted him up by his collar. He spit in her eye then frog-kicked off her body, sailing over the edge of the roof.


	5. Wrath

Wonder Woman planted her foot on the roof barrier and leaned far back. She felt a brutal tug that nearly ripped the golden lasso out of her hands. When the weight steadied, she exhaled and tried to wipe the bloody spit out of her eye with her elbow. The cord stretched taut over the edge and shifted ever so slightly as its load swung yards below. She didn't worry that the lasso might fray against the roof edge. She doubted it _could_ fray. She did worry that it had just crushed his chest when his weight cinched the loop tight. Wonder Woman had an innate control of her weapon and could change its tightness with a thought. No one escaped if she didn't allow them. Her intention to secure the Batman had hardly wavered when she had been used as a diving board and spit in the eye. She had willed it as tight as possible. Now she could feel that the loop was cinched nearly closed - had the cord torn him in half? Wonder Woman steadied her leverage and leaned enough to peer over the roof. A story below, Batman hung from the golden cord by his hand. Through the dark of the moon, she swore he looked up at her. He let go, landed on his feet, and ran.

Wonder Woman wouldn't learn this for a long time, but when Batman kicked off her chest and entered free fall, he had slipped the lasso over his head and grabbed above the knot - expecting to tear the weapon from her hands and suffer the two story fall.

Batman wouldn't learn this for a long time, but the only reason he was able to slip the lasso, even weightless, was because she had been distracted at just that moment and lost sight of him. If she had focused on him in the least, the lasso would have tightened instantly to whatever circumference would secure him.

Wonder Woman watched him retreat along the factory wall. That would be perfect. This district was flat and empty. Even with a limp (an insult soon to be avenged), she was sure she could catch him quickly. He would have nowhere to elude her this time. Batman rounded the corner of the building. She finishing looping her lasso while she walked towards the adjacent edge to see which course he chose to retreat. She didn't rush. Better to watch him from up here than lose him on the ground. She could recover the time in a single leap. Now where was he? Wonder Woman peered keenly into the night. Surely she could spot a fleeing brigand in an empty yard of cement. She had let him out of sight for three seconds; it was inconceivable that he could have reached the far road already.

As she watched in baffled anger, she heard a noise from under her feet. Did he really just ... ­ she slid over the barrier and dropped the ground. There was a window cut into the unpainted cinder blocks ­ he did! This Madman of Gotham had a death wish. He had flown into a cage. Wonder Woman eased inside. By her reckoning, the space was almost a half­acre. The scattering of lights were still on, weakly illuminating perhaps one room in four. She moved as quietly as she could, not to protect her own obscurity but to better hear if he tried to leave through another exit. That was the only reason she could imagine for reentering this structure. Was he hoping she hadn't notice his entrance? Could he wish to engage her again? He had to recognize her superiority by  
now, surely. He had to realize how patient and gentle she had been.

There was a footstep somewhere in the dark. She spoke out loudly. "You are cornered. By tonight's end you will submit to me from either bondage or the grave; I care not which. But choose now or I will choose for you."

Silence. At the end of a long hall, two lit bulbs went dark.

She frowned and crept further in, staying as best she could to the rare patches of moonlight. She was a seasoned hunter. If he was taking out the lights, that meant a prelude to an ambush. Time was on her side; she wouldn't rush out and make it easy for him. Elsewhere, another bulb broke, the glass scattering on the floor. She thought she heard a footstep to her left, but a wall blocked her view. She continued, moving gently as she tried to peer into the void. She passed under a second floor bulb gleaming high above through the unfinished ceiling. Something sped through the air.

With a soft shatter, the room went dark.

Wonder Woman leaped to the second floor and rammed through a door that was just swinging shut. Blackness. But there were hasty retreating footsteps ahead. She raced forward, crashing blindly through drywall and hanging tarps. A floorboard creaked and she swung a fist behind her, hitting nothing but air. Another squeak a few paces right and she dived at the noise, losing a foot through a hole in the floor. She pulled the leg out, scraping a thin white line across her shin it in the process. Something that sounded metallic shifted further on. She strained to glimpse anything in the inky shadows dancing around her from the light below.

A locomotive hit her from the side. Something low clutched her ribs with enough force to lift her airborne. Then airborne for a little longer. Then airborne still. In an instant of shock, Wonder Woman realized she had been tackled over another gap and clean off the second floor. They fell together through darkness.

She struck a cement floor with the weight of two bodies shoulder-first. Her head smacked a moment after. Her vision would have swam if there was anything she could see. Her assailant seemed none the worse and shifted above her. A bolt of fear shot down Wonder Woman's spine. She had enough wits to guard her head and neck with her arms, but it was a needless precaution. With a sharp sting, she knew Batman wasn't seeking her throat, he was planting another blade above her knee. She felt him stand, then felt a boot stomp the same knee twice. She cried out. Footsteps faded into the black.

In a burning rage, Wonder Woman punched the floor, leaving a dent, then pushed to her feet. When she steadied her balance, she pulled the spike from her leg and marched stiffly after him.

"Your fists and knives will not wound me!"

A ten foot length of steel rebar slapped her in the back.

One of the greatest marvels Princess Diana found in coming to America was the diversity of metal that girded Man's civilization. These materials boasted strength, lightness, flexibility, ductility, sheen, and keenness in measures and combinations she had never dreamed possible. Even their waste cans were a miracle next to the product of an Amazonian forge. Although iron and its alloys were known in her homeland, most everything was bronze. This was fine for their utopia: bronze was all they needed. Wonder Woman was quickly learning just how much Man's World was not a utopia; it's constant strife catalyzed more inventions in the past century than the Amazons had made in a millennium. Her people did possess sacred gifts from Hephaestus that would outshine Man's artifice, but these treasures would hardly fill a broom cupboard, and even a princess had few opportunities to bring one out of its shrine.

Put briefly, the kinetic potential of an inch-thick rod of high-carbon Gotham steel was something she hadn't adjusted to.

* * *

Batman pivoted and swung again. This time he missed. He slid around and sliced from the left. This connected with what he assumed was a shin. He flicked the bar upward and it ricocheted off something, probably her breastplate. He pulled it back in case she tried to grab it, paused a moment to listen, then smacked the shin once more.

Some people assumed Batman had bat traits. They were generally wrong. He didn't fly. He didn't have claws. He didn't live in a colony. He wasn't truly nocturnal (not for lack of trying). He wasn't covered in a fine layer of fur. And he had only eaten insects in emergencies. The one trait he shared with the winged mammals was a fantastic ability to track in the dark by sound. Batman lived and breathed this skill. He was perhaps the best in the world, but unlike the bat his prowess was limited to the living. Inanimate objects didn't make cough or pace. He still moved cautiously in the dark, lest he knock over a flower pot whenever he entered a window.

This was a burden on his methods, so he found exceptions. Batman learned early on how vital it was to establish safe hideaways. GothCorp had quietly paused construction here a year ago as part of an accounting scheme; its crews worked two days a month. Anything worth looting was long gone, so the company didn't bother with security. The area was too remote for squatters. It had a direct route to a sewer hub, and best of all, it was the sort of crowded, irregular environment where his tactics thrived. Batman could elude half a dozen pursuers for an hour in a place like this. Once he committed the layout to memory - another mastered art - he could jog blind without breaking a cobweb. Here in this empty shell he had the home field advantage. He was free to run.

Batman heard the woman charge across his path. She was close, dogging his movements almost step for step. He speared again and scraped her collarbone. It seemed the leg trauma was finally wearing her down. He certainly wasn't at his best. The new armor dispersed force wonderfully, but that just meant her pummeling shook all of him equally. Every joint and ligament had rattled loose, and his neck and shoulder were badly strained. He could hardly turn his head left. The analytical corner of his mind was starting to compensate. When he had escaped the safe room, Batman was lost in primal terror. It was the terror of a child, of a victim. Any reason that had returned in their first confrontation had crumbled again when her rope had invaded his mind. But now in the dark he was home. The fear was quickly freezing to anger. She had wrecked his plan, she had wrecked his reality, she had wrecked his body, and she had wrecked his mind.

Batman had always known deep down that it might not be healthy to spend one's life dreaming how to ambush and maim, but there were more important things than health, and dreaming had its advantages.

She hunted like a fiend, crashing through walls and knocking over machinery, but Batman knew the rooms too well. He waited with endless patience, keeping away until he could approach her rear, until she misstepped and gave him an angle. Polearms were not a major chapter in Batman's training as a martial artist, but he knew enough. He added more and more muscle behind each blow, and by the fifth attempt he was giving the nearest impression a ten foot steel bar could to a home run swing. Most missed or struck armor - but whenever one landed he could hear her stagger. After an especially punishing blow she dropped limp to the floor. Batman retreated a room, waiting for the reprisal.

None came. The lady must have been struck senseless. An old part of him wanted to check on her, but after a minute he decided that just this once he would leave a victim to chance. She could leap off a building with a hamstrung leg and a broken ankle; he doubted she was in mortal danger. Plus, he was eager to get as far away as possible. Batman crept as quickly as he dared to the disposal room. The crates over his escape route were a yard from letting him slip through. Batman set his shoulder and leaned in. Tendons burned along his flank. He shuddered and stopped. With a moment to breathe, there was nothing to distract him from how profoundly tired he was. The sweat-soaked fabric of his suit pinched under the armor at every joint. The metal plates seemed fifty pounds heavier than when he put them on. He had to rally his efforts just to turn around. He squared his upper back against the wood and forced his feet into the floor. His legs twitched, but at last the crates started to squeak and shift. He took small steps backwards, struggling to keep the momentum.

His fatigue and this noise deafened Batman to her footsteps. It was only by luck that he faced her way when the woman arrived. This disposal room had no ceiling to speak of. Turquoise moonlight bathed them both in a dusty arena of masonry and latticework. He spied a new cut on her right earlobe. She stood in the doorway, watching him with flat hatred. Her stance had devolved from dignified to predatory. He crouched and set the rebar ahead like a spear. It wavered slightly - he didn't have the strength to keep its twenty-seven pounds steady anymore. She noticed, and he knew it.

She took two swift steps and leapt, soaring the thirty feet between them.

* * *

Wonder Woman's vision pulsed and blurred - her right eye was mostly blind. Batman narrowly avoided her dropkick. She demolished the boxes behind him then was slapped in the back for her efforts. Her legs screamed as vinegar shot through her joints with every step. Wonder Woman deftly batted away another two short swings before a feint and a jab left a welt on her hand. She huffed in unregal frustration. His steely rod was really starting to vex her.

It figured that she left her own weapons at home. Amazons were masters in all arts of war, but their training paid far more attention to the sword, spear, and bow than to mere boxing or wrestling. Losing a weapon in the field but winning regardless was an unlikely scenario at best. An adversary fierce enough to disarm you would be an almost insurmountable threat after your disarmament. Any other purpose for the sports were mere recreation. Only a mandrake-addled fool knowingly entered the field of battle empty-handed (which raised more questions about this Batman). At least he seemed to have as great a deficit carrying proper arms as she did unaided: his spear-work was mediocre at best. Equipped with a stave of her own, she could doubtless subdue him in seconds. But none were in view, so the long weapon gave him a formidable advantage however lax his technique.

Lacking options but determined to conquer him, Wonder Woman rushed again and again only to be battered aside, kept at bay until she finally gleaned his rhythm. It was complicated: he transitioned through foreign stances and paces with admirable ease, but he was weary and his movements grew repetitive. At last, she divined his next intention, hopped over a low swing, caught it between her calves, turned, and dropped to a knee, trapping the weapon to the floor. Wonder Woman blew some matted hair out of her eyes and grinned. She tried to grab the rod, but he had stepped on it himself and was readying another throwing knife. She crossed her silvery bracers and intercepted the missile. It popped and engulfed her in a cloud of smoke.

Maybe it wasn't a knife. Wonder Woman coughed and ran until she found clean air. When her vision cleared as much as it could, Batman was nowhere in sight. She spun to find him, but it was too late. A brutal palm reached over her shoulder to wrench her chin up. She elbowed backwards twitch-quick, hitting a helmet, but he punched her in the ear twice and hooked her eye with his middle finger. She grabbed that wrist and wrenched his middle finger backwards, but this finally allowed a heavy arm to snake around her throat and flex shut. She was pulled against a man's body, his ragged breath warmed her neck. He smelled of sweat. He was primal. Feral. She fought desperately to pry herself loose, letting just enough blood pass to keep her faint awareness. Her thoughts swam. He pressed his forehead against her and leaned back, lifting her just off her feet, using her own weight to help hang her. Sound began to fade. But inch by trembling inch, Wonder Woman pulled the arm away. His hold was so secure and his leverage so dominant that it took the deepest reserves of her prodigious strength, but in the end it was no contest. He strained with equally absolute determination, but he was just a man.

Once the arm was clear of her neck she touched the ground and pivoted, still holding his arm, and seized Batman's throat through the small opening in his armored collar. He flinched but she held fast, adjusting her grip to surround the contours of his esophagus. Then her fingers gently closed. Batman's mouth burst open with a pained cough until he could grit his teeth shut. The veins on his oaken neck, already swelled from a marathon of effort, twitched with a new rush of blood. She added a feather of force. He hissed a long trail of air through his nose like a deflating balloon. His bloodied lips bent in a silent snarl. She stared coldly back and waited a long moment - she wasn't sure why, perhaps indulgence - then squeezed further.

In that instant she felt an urgent and agonizing pain dig through her hip. Batman's other hand had disappeared in the struggle. Wonder Woman glanced down and realized it had dropped low and was pressing something just under the lower edge of her breastplate - straight through her soft culottes and into her flesh - something that glowed. Her mouth opened in quiet surprise. Acrid smoke fumed around them and sparks danced down her leg. The pain was so perfectly intense that she didn't even recognize it as heat. She had the hazy notion to push Batman away, but her limbs were lost across a chasm of shock. Her body had clenched in a seizure Before she could act, his hidden hand rose to her arm that choked him. But it wasn't a hand any longer. It was a halo of magnificent light. The brilliant flame touched her arm. Stars erupted in her mind. It brushed along her bicep and up to her shoulder. Its arc left a line of blackened skin in its wake. The golden halo rose off her shoulder and jabbed sharply into her cheek.

Wonder Woman's face burned like she had dipped it in the fiery hell-river Phelgethon. Her voice broke out unbidden in a scream and a plea and a threat. Time collapsed. She lived a epoch of pain between each heartbeat.

When her senses returned, Wonder Woman lay in the dust, facing up at the sky. Her tiara had finally fallen off. Heedless of a hundred wounds, she struggled to a knee and saw the edge of a cape fall through a hole in the floor.

* * *

Batman slid fifteen feet down a chute steep and wide enough to dispose of five thousand rotted pickles a minute. Gotham City's fondness for oversized civic structures didn't stop at their sewers; the city was consistent like that. The food industries - canneries, meatpacking plants, and the like - built especially spacious plumbing since they had more organic waste than anyone. Batman didn't even lower his head to fit in the dank tunnel at the bottom. It sloped down into the earth with many grates and unfinished branches along the way. If GothCorp ever bothered to finish the place, it would be half-filled with a thick vegetable slurry that would make Walt Whitman puke. Until then the only moisture was some slime on the curved brick walls.

The faltering deductive engine of his mind spent a few cycles chewing on the memory of her scream. He heard it again and again - every throaty syllable and note. It was a puzzle. She spoke English earlier, albeit with an accent. But that scream sounded kind of like Greek. Normally the World's Greatest Detective wouldn't tolerate feeble observations that used the term "kind of like", but he was ashamed to admit he didn't know any Greek. A few words, sure, but next to nothing. Ironically, it was one of the very few academic subjects he hadn't studied. That was ironic because his dimmest peers at prep school had. Classics was compulsory at every institution he attended, and he habitually skipped every one. He thought it would never come in handy, and it hadn't ... until now. That was going to bother him for awhile.

He eased his blistering finger joint back into alignment. After a blind minute of walking, he reached a cupola in the tunnel with a ladder above. Batman had performed tens of thousands of pull-ups in his life, but he nearly fainted in his exertion to reach the ladder. He didn't need to see the ring of bruises around his neck to know they were blue and indigo and deep. He would be eating through a straw for a long time. And he didn't need to see the blisters across his hand to know what misery it was to touch anything.

Contrary to myth, Batman couldn't prepare for every surprise. But he had survived several lifetimes' worth of rough scrapes already, so there was very little that still surprised him. And the more dire the threat, the better he learned. For example, there was one instance in the recent past - though he detested to think about it - when someone he was responsible for was trapped behind a steel door and freezing to death. He improvised a solution but vowed afterward that he would never face that particular crisis again.

He found a simple powder in a welding journal, a variation on thermite that could melt through any material the authors had tested. Batman was at home in his lab and no stranger to pyrotechnics, but even he was reluctant to experiment with the stuff. It took three months to build a cigar-sized applicator which carried enough powder for a brief burn. He added a hilt above the grip just thick enough to stop the backwash of heat before it became uncomfortable. Naturally, this safety measure was tested while he was wearing gloves. He never expected to hold it with his bare hands, but he never expected to hold it against a person either. After doing both, he was surprised how little he minded. His burnt hand stung and throbbed as he stiffly climbed, and he remembered seeing the anguish and surprise in her face, and a perverse corner of his mind was proud that his tool could still put a hole in anything.

Batman heard motion far behind him. Someone had entered the tunnel. Batman climbed over the ladder like an old man and leaned against the wall. His mind was tired. It floated thin strings of useless ideas, ashes of the honed brilliance he took for granted. He paused to muster his thoughts. His options were all bad, and he barely cared. She was breathing when he left. She might well be invincible. Maybe she could follow him through the tunnels. They were practically made to echo, and he wouldn't run again tonight. He had spent his speed and mindfulness and strength. His arsenal was useless. He had no more fear to give. All he had left was spite, an anger deep in his marrow that drank in every bruise and blister and congealed those rich sensations into those nightmares that horrified him most, the nightmares when he was the beast. He realized he was sad. Whatever came next, he had already lost.

* * *

Men were beasts. The Amazons held this lesson dear to their hearts in every theater drama and bedtime story. It was the cause of their civilization. They were refugees in a sense, though all the better for it in hindsight. The globe was surely ravaged and laid fallow long ago by the dominion of Man. They had seen the bleak signs even on the eve of their exodus. The bravest spearmaidens would shudder to imagine the wasteland Man's world must be today. Surely across the sea was some great desert, a stagnant, miserable dystopia where the wails of the anguished echoed from dim Hibernia on one end of the world to lavish Persia on the other. The Amazons were its last survivors.

And so it would be till the heavens fell. In a hundred generations, not one son of Man could be trusted. The Amazons would always live apart. It was common knowledge that men were generally dense and added little to culture individually, chasing their crudest hungers when they weren't held back by sloth, but this made them no less a threat. In large groups Man's natural habits toward tyranny and cowardice occasionally organized him above the state of an animal, if not by much, and groups of men were a different beast altogether. If they couldn't enslave their women through force, they would ensnare them with guile and lies. Men were to be loathed, not pitied. They were strong of arm and clever in all dangerous crafts. The Amazons would never forget just how far a man would go to seize power when it suited him, and it always did.

That said, ice cream was pretty fantastic.

So was the jitterbug. And aircraft. And basketball. And street cars. And cameras. And Antarctica. And dinosaur bones. And saxophones. And Billie Holiday. And the Nineteenth Amendment. And microscopes. And coffee. And potatoes. And strawberries. And cheese! Great Hera, the Amazons had cheese, but Man's terrible regime had so many more cheeses, and most of them were delicious. And they would melt it on so many things. And mustard! Myths spoke of the mustard plant, but it didn't grow in her homeland. Wonder Woman was the first of her people to taste mustard in millennia, and she had every kind of cheese to do it with.

Wonder Woman's complicated feelings towards Man - in essence, towards men - could fill a bookshelf. She was the emissary of her people, their champion in every sense of the word. But her people had prepared her to expect demons, and she found, well, people. She arrived with hate and suspicion in her heart, but the men of the world were practically human. They didn't spend all their time sparring and exercising for battle; they weren't the host of Hercules. In fact most were weak by Amazon standards, and many smelled better. Quite a few men were chivalrous - a concept so backwards that she had a hard time wrapping her head around it. Women weren't peers here, it was true, but they were undeniably citizens. Occasionally they were even in charge. The spectrum of Man had its sinners and criminals (or bad eggs and crooks, as she was learning to say), but most ne'er-do-wells were a lesser breed of evil. They didn't have ambitions of glory and supremacy. The lion's share of social harm came from those who were selfish and ignorant, not exactly disciples of Ares. Brutish nations did exist in far-off lands, but good men were striving to cast them down.

In the quiet corners of her soul, Wonder Woman had begun to wonder if her culture's core conviction might simply be wrong.

Then she came to Gotham.

As she wiped the dust and blood from her brow, there was no doubt in her mind that Man still had his beasts. They were as fierce and cruel as the legends said. They had brawn and martial skill. They had armor of granite, and they hefted insidious weapons the likes of which the Amazons knew not. If those monstrous hordes of old no longer roamed the Earth, it seemed they willed all their malevolence into one ultimate descendent as a final curse. It was Batman! Batman. Batman. Batman. An atavistic fiend. A plague to the bonds of compassion and love that knitted humankind. She had faced a few terrible men here in Man's World, adventures found through her new friends and compatriots, but so far these foes all turned out to be an angrier, more vicious breed of the same weak men that she passed on the street. This horror, this Bat was something darker entirely. He was inhuman, stepping through the night like it was lit with a torch. He bludgeoned the valiant sentinels of Lady America's armies with impunity. And his words had twisted and confounded her conduit of Truth; only a most heinous mystic could spin a fable so innocent under divine coercion.

And now he had struck her a nigh-vorpal blow. Wonder Woman had never suffered such grievous harm. She shifted her garb aside and looked down: the burn on her hip was revolting to behold. It's only redemption was that the strange fire cauterized as it left, leaving no blood. A milder burn line marred her arm. She feared what travesty the wound on her face might resemble. She felt no sensation from ear to chin around its vile epicenter.

But Wonder Woman would not be bested. Disdaining every cut, she picked up her tiara and rose to her feet. Down the chute she found another realm of darkness. Typical. This city was so stale and artificial, but at least on the surface she was at liberty to move and could breath fresh air, and a few living things grew. But this passage was hardly different from a crypt. No wonder he seemed so familiar with the place. It was where a ghoul belonged.

She heard faint movement ahead. No duty in her life had ever seemed so necessary and clear as removing this blight did now. The virtuous people of the world needed her. Wonder Woman slowly cracked her knuckles. If he wouldn't face justice under civic law, if he insisted on the ways of the dark, then she wouldn't hesitate to send him into the Plutonian night.

* * *

By far the most unshakable regulatory office in Gotham City was the Meatpacking Supervisory Board. It was said that there were only three groups in the city who could never be bent by money or politics: the Franciscans, the Salvation Army, and the pork inspectors. Contrary to observers, Gothamites did have a sense of self-preservation, and it had been obvious since the city's founding that any illness from tainted food would be disastrous on top of their always questionable hygiene and sanitation. The slaughterhouses took extraordinary steps to protect the food and separate what remained. The nature of the city's density and building codes offered this challenge with a unique twist. The meat plants worked all hours to satisfy their huge demand, but this production routinely outpaced the logistical means to remove it: cargo space on trucks and trains was a hot commodity in the area. If a slaughterhouse could only transport one of its outputs, it would obviously send the day's meat to the stores and keep the waste for later. But no one could keep thousands of pounds of offal and other, even nastier butchery byproducts inside the factory.

The solution for one infamous ring of meatpacking plants near the uncompleted GothCorp site was to dump all this waste into what they called the Meat Pool. The backs of the eight buildings surrounded a round cement pit, sixty feet across and forty feet deep. Truck paths and conveyor belts led to the edge, and at least one was emptying animal remains into the pit at almost any given hour of the day year-round. Eventually, one of the slaughterhouse shipping schedules would have an opening and a portion of the Meat Pool's contents - now long decayed and fermented - would be hauled back up. To facilitate this, a network of screw pumps, pulleys, tubes, and, most disturbing of all, ladders also lined the pit's walls. Just as it was impossible to know how long a certain raindrop stayed in the ocean, no one could say how long an average bucketful of innards waited in the Meat Pool. Some employees guessed a week, some said a month. It was ultimately a philosophical question. Everyone knew the Meat Pool was the worst-smelling place a person could be.

It was one of Batman favorite places.

The muck wasn't technically harmful to spend time in. Smells were simple sensory signals. If you could overcome those, you were fine. And he did. It took a few sessions. He deemed it time well spent. At the core of Batman's philosophy was the belief that an individual could prevail against a crowd by having the will to take extraordinary measures that no one else would follow. In this case, he meant it literally. He could slap the mayor in front of city hall and be trailed by every officer in the GCPD, and not one of them would follow him into the pit.

He opened a grate under a storm drain next to one of the smaller slaughterhouses. It took several seconds to lift himself onto solid ground. His burned hand cried. he felt that if he turned his head in the least, it would fall off. Taking an old man's steps, he paced along the building until he reached the edge of the Meat Pool. Only three of the plants were operating tonight, but one on the far side was dumping indistinct clumps off a conveyor belt. He could see a general silhouette of things despite the hour. All the buildings in use had lamps around their rear loading doors and there were a few permanent lights installed halfway down the pit itself – someone in management seemed to think that any poor soul forced to do maintenance here at night shouldn't need to fumble with a flashlight. Likewise, the short chain-link fence around much of the edge was one of the sturdiest safety precautions in the city.

Batman leaned against the fence and paused to catch his breath. A shape sped towards him in the dark. As he turned, Wonder Woman rammed him against the fence and reached again for his throat. This time he tucked his shoulder and blocked the opening in his collar. She held him against the fence with a palm and struck viciously at his face. He took a few blows to his helmet, so much weaker than her first, then managed to put his arms up. She growled and seized him around the chest in a bear hug.

Batman was dazed but had enough to sense to be confused. A static move like this didn't seem her style. Then he was reminded that she could rip a steel door out of the floor. He instantly felt the back of his armor start to buckle. A new wedge of metal was touching his spine and feeling larger every second. She pushed her matted hair into his face to get as close as possible. There was a muted squeaking as their chestplates scratched against each other. A tightness increased in his ribs as the armor deformed. His shaking hands finally found purchase against her face and he pressed on her severe burn. She bucked her head but didn't let go. This was fine. Most of his body was immobile, but his neck, for all its trauma, wasn't constricted. Sucking down the pain, he bent slightly forward, turned his head sideways, and bit her throat.

* * *

Wonder Woman felt his mouth fasten across her jugular. She redoubled her efforts to finally wreck that accursed armor, but even now his hold was better than hers. The jaw was a formidable muscle, and his teeth cut and crushed as it struggled to shut. Continuing her assault meant offering her neck defenseless, and as she felt his fangs close towards her lifeblood, she was finally shocked by an icy drop of fear. Wonder Woman let go and struggled backwards. He didn't let her go easily and took some skin on the way. Being held by the throat left her overcompensating her balance, and before she had backpedaled two steps, Batman moved forward and stuck his hands into the large burns at her hip and cheek. She cringed as if shocked. He gently grasped her shoulder and performed a simple Judo throw. She landed on her head.

The effort seemed to wind him, but as she rose in anger, he was already straddling the fence. A dangling chain hung from a pulley several feet in front of him. Batman leaned forward into empty air, hopped, and caught it. Then he descended out of sight. It was then that she gave any attention to her surroundings. She gagged. Wonder Woman was engulfed in a furious stench wafting up from this abyss that made her eyes water. She realized her fury must have been heroic indeed if she missed that during her struggle. Wonder Woman was tutored to the loftiest heights of poetry and rhetoric, but words failed her now. It was almost physical, a dank sheet against her skin, moist and hideous. Her nerves needing time to restart again inside the veil of this sensory abomination. She paused, breathing only through her mouth. Then her righteous anger steeled her, and she leaped to catch the same chain into the pit.

She landed in the arena. He stood there, ghoulish, with his cape pulled around his body, casting half a dozen faint shadows from the multiple lights above. But she didn't see him at first. The air as she descended had turned from noxious to foul to belligerent. Each new layer was a new and terrifying odor dimension. She let go of the chain halfway down and crashed facefirst. And here at the bottom she finally knew what it all came from. The cesspit of an abattoir. A mass grave. The moment she spent submerged was the worst in her life. Even when she rose, the filth was all over her, sticking to her skin and clothes, infecting her through stench alone. A million flies appeared from nowhere and began to orbit her. That repellant city above seemed like paradise now. This was beyond even the horror she imagined could be found in Man's World. It rose to her waist, wet and warm, like all the dirtiest animals in the world ate garbage until they burst and died and their kin ate their remains until they also died and they all baked in the sun in a bog for a century. Her guts turned inside-out. It took an Olympian effort to hold down bile. Whatever spots of vision she once possessed were burned away by the power of the place. The smell had blinded her.

When a frayed shred of Wonder Woman finally found the fortitude to function in the Meat Pool, she saw Batman watching her, not bothered and not moving. Somehow this annoyed her further still. She approached him wearing a look of undiluted hatred and dripping undiluted gore. At four paces, Wonder Woman brought out her golden lasso and spun it beside her in rapid circle, then let go and launched it towards him. He lifted an arm as if to shield himself. She snared it and pulled taut. Batman crouched and stepped forward, keeping his balance. When she finished pulling and there was no slack between them, he grasped the cord in both hands and fell backwards.

Wonder Woman wouldn't ever be sure if she had made the right decision then, keeping hold of her priceless gift and being pulled into the muck for it. She wouldn't remember what it felt like to be submerged. All she was knew was that at some point she surfaced and looked around. The end of her lasso was loose, and Batman was nowhere to be found. She looked around for least half a minute, mindless, undone by the smell, then Batman burst out of the pool of waste like a shark, grabbed her, and pulled her under.

Eventually he must have let go and she managed to stand. All she remembered was that after a few seconds he did it again.

This time when she rose, he was nowhere to be found.

* * *

Wonder Woman would never learn that there was another way out of the Meat Pool. Its rancid contents were wet and soft but largely solid. Any disposed liquid drained through filters in the bottom of the pit into a basin below. This basin was filled deep enough to cushion a fall and conveniently near a hatch to a major sewer tunnel. She would also never learn that these filters tended to clog, so they were built with a hinge for easy opening.


	6. And You Thought Your Commute Was Bad

Captain Steve Trevor, United States Army Air Force, entered the Twelfth Street Arms with the cowboy swagger that came with defying gravity for a living and carrying a loaded pistol on your hip. He was trying to think of a decent line to brush off the receptionist when the kid called to him, "Hey, hey buddy! Are you a sailor?"

Steve stopped in spite of himself and turned to the kid. He realized his green dress uniform must be visible under his open coat. He considered for a moment how divorced from basic culture a person had to be to think that Navy sailors - who visited Gotham by the hundreds - wore green.

"Maybe."

"Great, listen," The kid scrambled over the reception desk. "You need to come with me."

Steve remained wary. "Says who?"

"Mr. Bertinelli said that if any sailors or anyone in uniform stops by, I'm to show them to his room."

"Did you say Bertinelli? Shucks, kid, lead the way. That's who I'm here to see."

The receptionist flipped a small sign on his desk that read "Smoke Break - Back in 10 Minutes" then led Steve up the stairs.

"He's in his room. I sent your partner up awhile ago."

Steve stopped on the second staircase. "What partner?"

"You know, the lady. She said she was with the Army. Had this shiny get-up instead of a uniform, though."

"Was she tall?"

"Crazy tall."

"Dark hair?"

"Uh-huh."

"Sort of a metal swimsuit?"

"That's her."

Steve's expression turned strange. The receptionist scratched his neck uncomfortably. "So, is she not in the Army?"

They found the crowd gone when they reached Arturo Bertinelli's hallway. Arturo was sitting on the floor, still wearing his bloodied pajamas, drinking wine from the bottle with one hand and resting the other under a bag of frozen broccoli.

The receptionist excused himself. Steve walked over. "Arturo Bertinelli?"

Arturo looked dog-tired. He turned and slurred, "Yeah. You the one working with Super-thighs?"

"Let's say I am." He saw Arturo's bruises and broken fingers. "What happened?"

Arturo frowned and spit. "Batman happened. Came though the damned brick wall." He shivered. "Can you believe that? Straight outta da bricks. Knocked me around, but dollface shows up, rips my steel door outta ta floor, and scares 'em off. He jumps straight out the window." Arturo coughed and held his ribs. "Listen, I don't know her story, but she's obviously got some pepper that don't come factory standard, know what I mean? Who knows what you khaki types been cookin' up? So even though she's a dame, I say, 'go give him a pounding, toots'. See, cause I didn't know when Batman was coming back. I was hurt. So the lady makes wise and jumps out the window after him."

"When?"

"I don't know, twenty minutes ago? Look, get me out before Batman gets back. Can't drive with my hand gimped."

"Alright, easy does it." Steve took the bottle away and pulled Arturo to his feet. "No one's getting a dirt nap on my watch. And due respect, buddy, but if my partner went after him, this bat character isn't spending the night anywhere but a hospital."

Arturo stretched his back and winced. "Pfff. A hospital. Where you from, kid? Cause I know it ain't Gotham Fricken' City."

Steve let Arturo sling an arm over his shoulders. "It's getting on my nerves how people keep asking me that."

"Well, suck it up, sunflower, and listen close. I dunno who your broad is, and I don't know what cuckoo muscle juice you put in her lemonade, but I know the Bat, and the Bat don't stop. So unless you brought ten buddies with gats, we need to be making some tracks _veloce_ , _capisci_?"

"Tell it to Mussolini, bud. Here we speak American."

* * *

Batman trained more as a sprinter than a marathoner, but on a good day he could easily cover five miles and call it a warm-up.

When he crawled out of the basin of old blood below the Meat Pool, he managed to stumble four steps before collapsing. Today was not a good day.

Batman eventually came to his senses, laying on the cold floor in the middle of a long smear of blood. He often dreamed of finding himself like this, but the blood in his dreams had never been bovine. He managed to roll to his side. It was almost complete darkness here. The specific events of the evening were difficult to piece together through his headache, and he felt terribly parched. Everything ached. One hand was missing its skin, and he couldn't move his neck.

Batman found his belt with his relatively good hand. He pulled out his multi-tool and unfolded a knife. Reaching as gingerly as he could manage, Batman began to cut through the straps of his prototype armor. He slit the braces from his arms and the greeves from his legs. He chiseled the helmet fixture off his cowl. Batman left these cracked pieces of armor on the floor. Even if someone visited this horrid place and found his pile of trash, it wouldn't mean anything. He wanted to remove the heavy breastplate most of all, but that impossible woman had dented it inward. He doubted he could remove it without bolt cutters and a crowbar.

When Batman stood, it was a multi-stage affair. Every successive joint risked buckling like a newborn fawn. Batman finally made it to both feet and paused to breathe. He reached absently for the belt pouch where he usually kept gauze, but the pouch was empty. He remembered that his plan for tonight had been entirely offensive. The wrathful focus he put into the evening's preparations made his usual attention seem lackadaisical by comparison. And his chief priority - his obsession - was that he would not fail for lack of firepower. He had packed almost nothing but weapons. It made sense at the time.

Typically, if the Dark Knight found himself in the middle of a sewer with severe injuries and no medical supplies, he would regret whatever decision-making brought him there. But tonight's cruel irony was that he had played his cards perfectly; he had indeed needed all those weapons. He had done everything right and still looked like he stepped in front of a bus.

Of course, sprains and bruises would heal. Batman's real concern was his open wounds had been soaking in the least-sanitary goo on the planet. Batman knew his epidemiology, and it wasn't a topic he studied to be a detective. Disease was rarely relevant to crime, but diseases were very relevant to young men who spend years traveling in poverty through the world's dirtiest cities and wildernesses. Batman wasn't sure what pathogens could be found in a thousand gallons of meat slurry that had been sitting outdoors for a month, but he was sure the list wasn't pleasant.

* * *

The Amazons lived on an island they called Themyscira. Technically, Themyscira referred to the society on the island and the main city in particular. The island's proper geographic title was Paradise Island, but this was mostly used in formal ceremonies and by the sort of pedantic scholar who others regretted inviting to parties. Amazons were a proud, not terribly subtle people, but even they agreed that "Paradise Island" was a tad pretentious. The only group that was fond of the name was Themyscira's farmers. They were also the only Amazons who ever mastered irony. No one could till the island's soil and still call it that with a straight face.

Themyscira was mostly lush forest and rocky hills, and both were extraordinarily difficult to plow by hand. The Amazons raised horses and asses, but domestic beasts were rare. The island had few wild meadows, so a large stable of work animals would have to be fed from a farm's own harvest. If the Amazon's weren't such adept fisherwomen, half the island would surely starve.

When Princess Diana traveled to Man's World, her greatest immediate surprise was how many men there were. The Amazons had an abundance of stories about Man's World, but they never focused on demographic nitty-gritty. She was under the hazy impression that large kingdoms might have half a million subjects, and only a few cities in all civilization housed, say, fifty thousand residents. When she arrived in America, her first sight of an apartment block stunned her. The notion that a hundred people could live in the same building was unacceptable. The masses must be penned like slaves. But no, they weren't living in filth (thanks to indoor plumbing and soap), and, more incredibly, they had plenty to eat (thanks to tractors, refrigeration, and countless other tools).

Diana soon earned a library card, and after several trips and a few conversations with well-educated friends, her shock turned into existential dread. There were two billion people in the world. Billion, a number she didn't know existed. The Amazons were undoubtedly the finest warriors alive, but if the Patriarch nations could muster even one percent of their brood and arm each with a stick, her people wouldn't stand a chance. In hindsight, she realized that she may have reacted poorly to this news.

It didn't help that Man's World had much more to offer than sticks. Even now, Diana still didn't knew many of the systems that ran modern America. Perhaps the most amazing and abstract was the food supply. She still hadn't found time to visit a farm or ranch, and many of the steps between dirt and plate were still a mystery. For instance, she hadn't considered the consequences of mass production.

Not anymore.

In a mental fog, Wonder Woman climbed up hand-over-hand up a chain to the top of the Meat Pool. Her vision had returned and her twisted ankle was now a dull ache. Her face still hurt terribly. She was dimly aware of the four slaughterhouse workers gaping at her, an imposing woman slathered in gore. One approached and said something, perhaps an offer to help, but she didn't hear words in the fog and walked past him. A short man grabbed her wrist. Wonder Woman casually pulled it away, tossing him to the floor. Another man ran up and tried to hold her arm. She stopped, and delivered a quick headbutt. He flew backwards, clutching his nose. Wonder Woman readjusted her tiara and continued. No one else in the plant disturbed her. She reached the entrance and started walking down an unknown road.

In minutes, a police car parked in front of Wonder Woman and pulsed its siren. Two officers stepped out, both men. She had enough sense now to glean a few words they said: trespass ... disturbance ... mental ... family ... burns ... homeless. Wonder Woman waited as they talked; she had nowhere to go anyway. Their tone told her that they were growing impatient. Wonder Woman struggled to focus on their questions and tried to mumble a response, but her mind was elsewhere.

As the officers talked, a teenage girl approached on the sidewalk behind them, almost a shadow in the moonlight. Wonder Woman idly watched the girl creep towards the police car. She didn't know much about cars, but she knew its engine was running. Wonder Woman was about to say something when one of the officers snapped his fingers in her face and insisted she pay attention. The girl climbed in and slammed the door. By the time the officers reacted, she had the pedal to the floor. The tires squealed. Before they found traction, Wonder Woman stepped forward and lifted the front of the police car a few inches off the ground. The teenager saw her though the windshield and screamed, revving the engine again and again to no effect. Wonder Woman glared back and nodded away from the car.

Eventually, the girl opened the door and sprinted unsteadily away. When the tires spun to a stop, Wonder Woman lowered the car to the ground and wiped her forehead. She sat on the hood and noticed the two police officers were yelling and pointing their weapons at her. Wonder Woman frowned.

* * *

Batman spent many evenings under Gotham, but he was sure that he hadn't seen a fifth of the city's underground. Its multitude of paths were largely unmapped and frequently dangerous. It could take months to find the entrance to the most obscure routes. Batman could at least justly say he was familiar with its major thoroughfares, and the tunnels under the food-packing district were the city's subterranean Main Street.

The Dark Knight recognized a long time ago that he would often be stuck as he was now: tired and likely injured, on the run, and separated from a vehicle or other permanent means of escape. One of his solutions was to set up small camps across the city where he could hide and rest. Given its prime underground location, one of these camps was a quarter of a mile from the Meat Pool.

Occasionally, stripes of light from a streetlamp would filter through a storm drain above, but most of the path didn't brush the surface, and there he walked in darkness. This was just as well: the bruises on his face were swelling one eye shut. He walked like an invalid, struggling to balance with petty steps. It was the slowest quarter mile he had ever traveled.

Batman's camp was down an unused side tunnel as wide as a hallway. He knew he had reached it hen he stepped on the bed of old cardboard on the floor.

He lit the lamp on the floor. When he called his camps small, he wasn't kidding. There were two layers of cardboard, a pillow, and a blanket. There was the lamp. There was a metal tackle box. And that was it. He sat on the cardboard and opened the tackle box. On one side was a meal and jars of water. On the other side was a decent medical kit.

Spoiled meat offered two varieties of disease: endogenous and exogenous. Those the animal caught while living were endogenous. This might include nearly every veterinary bug from anthrax to tapeworms, but modern oversight ensured that bad endogenous cases rarely reached the food supply. Exogenous diseases infected the meat after slaughter. These were typically less varied and not as severe, but they were impossible to eliminate through regulation since many cases were the buyer's fault. Meat did not stay fresh in the open, and certain people have chosen to test this fact since the dawn of time. Exogenous threats were usually bacterial or fungal, which greatly simplified the issue.

Batman had twenty penicillin pills in his kit. He crushed eight in his hand and swallowed them with a swig of water. That just left fungal, and fungal was rare. He treated his wounds as best he could. Ever the pragmatist, he still had the appetite to eat a can of Spam. Then he went to sleep.

* * *

Captain Steve Trevor, USAAF, drove carefully up Twelfth Street. Arturo Bertinelli, struggling caporegime of the Bertinelli crime family, rode shotgun.

Steve said, "I'm surprised they're running informants here in the States. What do they have you spying on?"

Arturo said nothing.

Steve chuckled. "I know how it is. Forget I asked. So where do I drop you off?"

To Steve's surprise, Arturo gave this question deep thought. "Are you on a deadline?"

"No. It'd be nice to get a few winks before sunrise, heh, but I guess I'm at your disposal, kemosabe."

"How far can we go?"

"About fifty miles on this tank. If you mean you want to leave town, I'd have to ask my superiors. And I'd need to check in with my partner."

Arturo thought silently again. "Do you know where Hoxton Station is?"

"Can't say that I do."

"I'll show you. Take a left here."

"Mm-kay."

"Woah, slow down, slow down."

"What?"

"Hold on a second ... ah geez."

"What?"

"The clock on that window. Is it really almost one-thirty?"

"Sounds about right."

"Hey, I bet you want to check in with that partner real soon, eh? Eh?" Arturo made a lewd grin and elbowed Steve's arm.

Steve smiled a little. "I guess so."

"I mean, yowzah! If I weren't a married man, right?"

"Whatever you say."

Arturo leaned in. "So how's about this? Forget the speed signs. You get us there fast, and we both get what we want."

"What's the rush?"

"Listen, there's a train that stops at Hoxton at two. We can make it there, but we really have to burn rubber."

"Just how fast do you mean?"

"Thirty-five. Forty."

"Forty! I don't know, buddy. It'd be my hide if I got pulled over while I'm on the job."

"Ah, the law ain't for squat here. The fuzz's too busy getting their take and munching doughnuts to play traffic cop. And not to brag, but I'm kind of a big shot in these parts." Arturo jabbed at his chest. "You won't have trouble with this mug beside you."

"No can do."

"Ain't you said you was a pilot?"

"I didn't tell you that."

"Well I can tell by that pins you got. What would the other pilots think if they heard you were a chicken?"

"Excuse me?"

"A yellow-bellied little chicken scared of a little horsepower."

"Are you trying to goad me by calling me names?"

"Come on, pal. We gotta get their quick. I have news I have to share with our bosses in person, see? And that's a few states away."

"You could have mentioned that earlier."

"Come on, pal. It's ... it's for America."

"Well, alright."

* * *

As Batman rested on the floor, a rat ran past his foot. He stirred but thought nothing of it. Several minutes later, three rats scampered over his legs, quickly disappearing down the path behind him. Batman grimaced against the inevitable headache, took a deep breath, and sat up. He could faintly hear an endless patter of tiny footsteps in the many pipes and sluices around. There was a constant rustling through the walls. He turned on his lamp. A rat appeared through the dim and sat on his knee. It chittered at him, and he shook it away. The creature ran. Soon all the rustling stopped, and the air was silent. A long chuckle echoed through the forking tunnels ahead.

Batman rose to his feet, leaning against the wall to steady himself. All at once, he could hear - could practically feel -a wave of motion nearby. The weak light gave substance to a low black mass as far down the tunnel as he could see. It didn't rise above ankle-height, but it covered the floor from wall to wall like an ink spill, and it was moving towards him. He turned and saw there was an identical mass approaching from the other direction. Batman picked up a short lead pipe left from some old maintence job. Still using the wall for support, he held the pipe like a club.

At five yards, Batman could see that the moving mass was a mob of rats. There had to be hundreds. His boots and pants were sturdy enough against some rat bites, but his hands and face were exposed completely. Rats could jump three feet in the air and were great climbers. If they just bounced off his legs, he would be fine. If more than a few hung on and climbed, he would be in trouble. What if he tried to rush past? He couldn't see the end of the pack, but he was sure the horde couldn't extend further than twenty or so feet. Only so many hundreds of rats could live in one place. That was simple ecology. On the other hand, he had thought their current behavior was impossible too, so perhaps he ought to toss the textbook entirely. Could he run through a swarm that thick? Or would the living tide of vermin trip him? His odds were bad enough standing, but he was clearly a goner if he fell.

He mentally recited his few remaining tools. None seemed appropriate. He glanced at the lead pipe. _Fat lot of good a club would do_.

Batman almost never used sarcasm or idiomatic phrases, even to himself, but he used to have a welding teacher who loved to say that things were "A fat lot of good", and once in a blue moon the phrase came to mind.

The rats grew silent and still. Batman saw a tiny glow in the distance. He thought to turn off his lamp but decided the illumination would give more than it took away. He wasn't going anywhere. The glow grew closer and became a figure who stopped just behind the first line of rats. The man was short, and every aspect of him seemed unhealthy. His skin was pale and splotchy, and his posture was terrible. The man wore heavy coat and heavy boots. The glow came from a lantern he carried.  
His face was hidden behind a Great War-vintage baggy gas mask with round lenses, and he wore a construction helmet.

The stranger put the lantern on the floor, casting eerie shadows from below. He loosened the gas mask and let it hang around his neck. It was hard to guess the man's age, but he was squinty and scruffy, and his dirty hair was starting to thin.

The man spoke with a wheeze. "Well. Well. Well. How unexpected. I wondered what poor tramp made this bed, but you don't look like any bum I've seen. I-" He coughed. "What is that? "Oh! Oh, dear Lord. What is that smell? Uruggh! It's like my nose hairs are being scoured with dynamite! How- how is that possible? Uuggh. I live in a literal rat's nest, and you are by far the worst thing I've ever smelled, sir. You are abominable." He fit his gas mask back on his face, muffling his voice. "So who are you?"

Batman answered, " **I'm ... just passing through.** "

"Well, Mr. 'Through', if you were a nobody, I might let you be, but clearly you are not. You are a somebody. Somebody weird, no doubt, and faintly familiar, but still a somebody. And I make it my business to deal with somebodies."

" **How?** "

"If they look ritzy, I let them pay a toll and show them to door. But if they look suspicious, well, I might just feed them to the kids."

" **You have children?** "

"The rats, dummy. Do you have any idea how fast rats reproduce?"

Batman realized he actually did. " **No.** "

"Most _are_ kids. 'Specially considering how young they die. Now why don't you put down that pipe before you start to look suspicious."

Batman bent slightly and started to lower the pipe, but then he took a quick step forward. Before he could take a second step, the swarms of rats behind and before him hissed viciously.

The man shook his head. "I know it's redundant to ask this of a guy who sleeps in a sewer, but you aren't very wise, are you?"

Batman reluctantly dropped the pipe. The man took a knee and let an especially large rat climb onto his shoulder. His whispered to the rat, and it leapt back into the crowd. After a brief commotion, four rats ran forward and pushed the pipe away, nudging it urgently with their paws and snouts.

" **You trained these rodents to follow commands?** "

"Trained is a strong word. They're smarter than people give them credit for. All I need to do is ask."

Batman considered this. It wasn't the strangest thing he had seen that night. At this rate, it might not break the top five.

" **You talk to rats.** "

"Well, I'm the Ratcatcher, can't you tell? The job would be mighty tough if I couldn't." The Ratcatcher started cackling like a goblin. "Now, what should I call you? I insist."

" **What?** "

The Ratcatcher spoke up. "I said, 'what should I call you?'"

Batman leaned forward. " **Pardon?** "

The Ratcatcher stepped forward. " _I said **-**_ "

Batman pounced and grabbed his ear.

"Ow! Hey, drop my ear, man! Give me my sound cone back!"

The rats hissed again but kept their distance. Ratcatcher panicked and lifted the hem of his ragged coat, exposing the grip of a revolver down the front of his pants. He struggled to pull it past his waistband. Before he could remove it, Batman seized his wrist. Ratcatcher fought for a moment then froze, as if suddenly realizing where his weapon was pointed. Batman looked him flatly.

The Ratcatcher stuck out his chin. "It's intimidating there."

Batman took the revolver. **"Listen closely. I spend as little time here as possible, but when I'm here, you won't bother me. And when I'm not, you're not going to touch my belongings. If you don't follow these simple rules, then I'll take your ear again, and next time I won't give it back.** "

Batman let go of Ratcatcher and lifted the revolver. The Ratcatcher flinched, but Batman merely unloaded each bullet, letting them bounce off the floor, then tossed the empty weapon far into the darkness.

Ratcatcher looked at him oddly. "Wait, you are familiar."

" **I doubt that.** "

I've only heard of one guy who does that with heaters. You're Batman!"

Batman nodded.

"I'm a big fan. You helped incarcerate some guys I owed money.

" **If you want to return the favor, I'm be grateful if you called off your rats.** "

"Oh, sure." He whistled, and hundreds of rats disappeared into the darkness. "Gee, running into you. What are the odds?"

" **Not low enough.** "

"I mean, wow, Batman in the flesh. I thought you wore gloves?"

* * *

Wonder Woman landed behind a statue in the courtyard of her hotel. She had calmed down. Some brisk exercise had cleared her head. Whatever rage or anguish clouded her were long gone. The police sirens were fading in the distance. _What an embarrassment._ Wonder Woman considered serenity a cardinal virtue. There was no shame in being hot-blooded if circumstances demanded action; indeed, that was valorous, but to stay incensed after a battle was over? Besides being unworthy of a diplomat, such crudeness was simply unregal. There was no greater self-criticism in her vocabulary. She had much to meditate on, but many responsibilities to fulfill before that. Now was not the time.

Wonder Woman checked around for onlookers. The courtyard was deserted. She held her arms out to her sides, made a quarter-turn as if winding to throw a discus, then began to spin. She turned like a top, faster and faster. On her third turn, there was a flash of groovy technicolor light and in Wonder Woman's place stood Diana Prince. The flecks of animal remains still stuck to her prior form had disappeared. This was a relief; she wasn't certain it would work like that. Her sense of smell was too numb to judge if the odor was also gone. It was a risk she had to accept.

Diana entered the hotel lobby. She passed a few guests and received no strange reactions. That was one fewer concern. Margret, the front desk clerk, greeted her as she passed. "Long night, dear?"

Diana smiled. "Very long, thank you."

"Well, you've best to bed then." Margret noticed something and gasped. "Heavens, what happened to your cheek?"

Diana looked surprised and went to one of the ornate mirrors decorating the lobby. She thought the wound on her face had faded, but she could still see a faint red burn. Diana frowned.

* * *

" **So you actually were a ratcatcher, Otis?** "

Batman and the Ratcatcher sat against the moist wall. Batman would have preferred to leave, but he could still hear countless rodents chittering beyond the edge of the light. At the moment the safest move seemed to be polite, which in this case meant having a chat.

" _The_ ratcatcher. I was the city's first man to call."

" **What happened?** "

"I got sick of killing rats. Never been much of a killer."

" **I respect that.** "

"Plus I got sick, period. When they put me on the really bad cases, rabies and the like, my smooth tongue just wasn't good enough, so I had to use all sorts of chemicals. They're resilient little tykes. How do you think my voice got this bad?"

Batman had to admit, on any other night, this conversation would be a fascinating opportunity.

" **What did you do when you quit?** "

"Fell apart, to be honest. Do a job long enough and it's all you know, you know? Eventually I realize maybe I can do something else with rats. At first I thought a stage show, but that didn't work. One day Patty, one of my first rats, she passed away recently, I sent Patty into a store to pick up a hat I left there. But rats make mistakes just like we do, and Patty comes back with some stranger's hat instead. Then it hit me."

" **You could use your incredible gift to commit crimes.** "

"I could use my incredible gift to commit crimes! What a revelation. I'm sure no one's ever thought of that before."

Batman quietly grit his teeth.

"It took some trial and error: learning what the kids could carry, what items I could use or fence, how long they could remember instructions, what to do if they were caught, those kinds of problems. But I solved them. These days I make a decent living commanding an army of tiny pickpockets from the comfort of my living room. It's a sweet life if you don't mind rats."

" **Have you considered using your rats for a higher purpose?** "

"Well, I considered selling what I do as a weapon."

" **Commanding an army of rats to attack people.** "

"Attack people? No, no, no. Sure, I'll have rats attack people personally, in self-defense. Sometimes even in self-offense-"

" **That doesn't exist.** "

"-But I wouldn't make that into a service for just anyone, of course not. Please. I meant sending rats to infest a place. Insurance scams, real estate scams, old-fashioned revenge. The opposite of a ratcatcher, come to think of it. Regardless, it didn't seem worth the risk."

" **By a higher purpose, I meant contributing to science or a civic project. You have a unique ability. I can imagine ten valuable applications right now.** "

"Meh. What's society ever done for me? But hey, maybe when I've made a nice nest egg to retire on. If I'm feeling generous, that is. I'll let you know. Oh, I also considered using rats as niche messengers, but I frankly don't have the business savvy."

" **Messengers?** "

"Sure. Tie a note to their back and Bob's your uncle. The good ones will find any address in half a mile if your directions are good enough. Then you just hope the receiver has the sense to take the note from a rat."

Batman thought for a minute. " **I don't suppose you could give me a demonstration?** "

"What do you have in mind?"

* * *

Arturo Bertinelli settled into his train seat. Day trains in Gotham would not let someone in their dirty, ripped pajamas buy a ticket. Night trains could not be so picky. Arturo looked out the window and saw Steve Trevor on the platform. They made eye contact, and Arturo humored him with a sloppy salute. Steve chuckled and saluted back. The whistle sounded, and the train began to chug out of the station.

Steve sauntered to a pay phone and dialed the general.

"Sir, it's Captain Trevor. I'm calling to let you know-"

"Captain! Where are you? Have you found Arturo Bertinelli?"

"I found him, and-"

"Good. The mission has changed. Restrain Mr. Bertinelli immediately and call the police. He's to be taken into custody. If he resists, use all necessary force."

Steve looked at his feet and swallowed. "... About that."


	7. Bigger Fish

In the early 19th century, Gotham City built America's first passenger train. It was a timely invention: people previously traveled on horses, and the city's manure output was already fertilizing most of the state. However, passenger trains were only useful near people, and Gotham City was adding an extra city's worth of people every decade. Beet farms became chic markets. Muddy land was dredged from the sea to build tenements. The railroad magnates eventually added new lines, but then they planned to close the old ones. This was a mistake. Old Gotham was not nearly as bustling as its heyday when the Whigs were in office, but the original stops were still useful to a few crusty residents, and these residents could be awfully loud when their commute was threatened.

Influential voices who lived on streets older than the Constitution convinced city planners to detour many of the new rail lines through old stations. They argued that this would save money. This prevented those stations from ever being decommissioned, but it also forced many trains through lengthy detours which could, in the worst cases, add half an hour to a five minute trip. The railroads responded by speeding up the trains and wasting less time on safety inspections, and for a while all the changes broke even.

But each fix merely delayed the inevitable. After several generations of rerouting and accelerating, Gotham's public transit was a maddening mess that was said to have inspired a visiting Franz Kafka. The trains routinely broke their own speed records. Several ancient stops served no local passengers at all. Fortunately, Gotham's tendency to approve foolish civil projects was matched only by its ingenuity at patching foolish civil projects. To shorten routes, local construction firms became world leaders in rail bridges, subways, and elevated trains. Special streetcars and funiculars connected lines where tracks couldn't fit. A child could travel at three elevations on a trip to school. When the roller coaster was invented, no city was less impressed.

By the 1920s, Gotham's train schedules finally approached sanity. The last sticky problem was the maps which were knottier than ever with the extra paths. Plans were drawn to streamline the mass transit system, but the Great Depression crippled them. Getting lost in a bad neighborhood became a tourist rite of passage, and robbing a tourist in a bad neighborhood became the most popular mugger hobby.

The night train Arturo Bertinelli rode out of Hoxton Station was on the Y1-N0 Line. That was its routing code for reasons that were too complicated to explain, but everyone called it the Wino Line for reasons that were self-explanatory. The Wino Line snaked through one of the ugliest corners of the transit system. It had only five more stops, but finding all five on short notice would be a challenge for any out-of-towner. So, when Arutro escaped the War Department's custody, the General swallowed his pride and called the GCPD to request they search each station for a short, dusty, injured man in ripped pajamas.

The police captain who received the call thought for a moment then asked which short, dusty, injured man in ripped pajamas they were looking for. The Wino line hauled semi-conscious bums and deadbeats to wherever bums and deadbeats migrated after last call. It was free after midnight, subsidized by businesses near the early stops to encourage its cargo to bother the late stops instead. If Arturo was the most beat-up, disheveled shmoe aboard, it wasn't by much. The cops would have recognized him at first glace if the General had simply shared the gangster's name, but the military was still clinging to the hope that they could keep the locals in the dark about Operation Underworld and shared as little as possible.

There was a police cordon outside the first station, but Arturo didn't even notice. A pair of cops entered the train at the second station. He saw them in the car ahead and quickly stole a hat and coat off a sleeping slob beside him. One of the cops eyed him for five long seconds when they passed through, but the cop kept walking. Arturo's heart didn't stop pounding until the train pulled away.

The Bertinellis didn't have the same productive relationship with Gotham's Finest as the other Families; theirs was more of a cold truce. Everyone had spilled blood back in the Vendettas, blue or otherwise, but the Bertinellis had practically bathed in it. And even by the standards of his own kin, Arturo hadn't been known as an altar boy (he had, in fact, been an altar boy).

Arturo had hoped at the beginning of the night that he could call on his friends in Washington to bail him out. This hope had started to flicker when Batman had mentioned - in typical villain monologue - that he was in a noose from both the Feds and the local courts. It begged the question of why the military would go so far to rescue and hide him if he was just going to be arrested. There had to be some frame going on, that was for sure. There were pieces in play he couldn't see. It didn't matter, Arturo Bertinelli was nobody's stooge. If he wasn't in on the take, he got out of the picture. That creed had served him well. So he played along, all smiles, then he jumped ship at the earliest opportunity. And not a moment too soon. Coppers wouldn't search a train at two in the morning for some drunks. He was a wanted man.

Arturo resolved to lay low in some flophouse until the heat died down. _Just like the old days_. Soon the conductor announced that next station, Lancaster Commons. When the brakes squealed, Arturo pulled his hat down and waited for a crowd to form at the doors. No one rose. A realization struck him like a slap: The Wino line crossed one of the old routes here. Lancaster Commons was a cracked lot full of trash and condemned storage sheds. Even the hobos didn't stop here.

Arturo peeked through the window and saw four police officers standing outside. An annoyed train attendant climbed out to talk to them. Arturo couldn't hear the conversation, but it involved a lot of urgent pointing at the passengers. _How could I be caught like this? Geez, I'm the wino tonight! I can smell it on my breath._ Arturo slapped his cheek. _I have to get my act together_.

In short order, the cops began to usher everyone out onto the rotted platform. None of the lights in the station worked. The building was a century old; he wasn't certain if it had ever _had_ lights. What little illumination there was on the platform shone from the train's windows and the headlights of the parked police van which Arturo assumed had entered through the hole in wall.

The officers ordered the thirty-some passengers to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a line outside the train. The average passenger's blood alcohol was somewhere north of flammable, so this was not a quick process. Several couldn't stand. Most wouldn't shut up.

Arturo kept his head down and quietly fell into line. It was all he could do, his knees were shaking so badly. He thought of his kids. Arturo had been arrested a few times, of course. He spent time in the big house. But any guy could sweat a nickel in the clink if he had something to come back to. What if the Bat hadn't been bluffing? Arturo's name would be mud. All his cousins and friends, all the old accomplices he kept in touch with and the neighbors on his Christmas list - if the bosses gave the word, not a single one would spit on him if he was dying of thirst. They wouldn't take the stand to keep him out of prison. If the fuzz cuffed him, that was it. Life behind bars. Kaput.

As he watched the police move down the line, he knew he wouldn't accept that.

The Bertinelli family tree had produced sixteen felons in the last three generations. Together they were guilty of virtually every crime on the books, yet not one member of the family had served a prison sentence longer than eight years. Each one condemned to more than a decade without parole had either escaped or died trying, and these were the ones that went to trial. No Bertinelli wanted for a capital crime had ever been taken alive.

A pudgy young officer ambled in front of him and held up a flashlight. "Look here, pal."

Arturo continued to face the ground and lifted his hand against the glare.

The officer whistled. "Whoh, what happened to them fingers? Got'em caught in a door?"

Arturo mumbled. "Nothin'."

"Sure pal. Let's see those eyes." Arturo tried to shy away further, but the officer caught his chin and pushed it up.

"Holy beans! You- Hey guys, it's Arturo Bertinelli!" The other three officers turned and the pudgy officer waved them over. "It's Arturo Bleedin' Bertinelli!"

One of the officers scoffed. "What'dya talking 'bout Harold? Ain't no Bertinelli rides a drunk train like 'dis. My cousin chauffeurs one of the old man's sons around. They could buy the damn train."

"Well look!" The officer pulled open the top of Arturo's coat. "He's all beat-up in his pajamas like they said-"

Arturo stepped around and reached into the officer's holster. He had never shot a gun with his left hand before. It felt heavy and awkward, but he wasn't concerned with his aim tonight. He fired two shots over his head.

The cops froze. Dozens of drunks screamed. Arturo ran. He could hoof it for a man his age. A bullet whistled past his leg. He spun and shot from the hip. It ricocheted off something metal. The cops chasing him dived to the floor. Arturo reached the hole in the wall. The weedy lot was covered with dozens of collapsing sheds and piles of debris as tall as a man. Empty bins and crates were scattered everywhere, and the only light was glow of the cloudy moon.

When the officers made it outside, Arturo had disappeared. The three with weapons fanned out at a steady creep. For all its abundant flaws, the GCPD produced stone-cold tactical professionals, and the three officers focused all their training into every step. They all knew Arturo's old reputation. He could be hiding anywhere here, he was armed, and that was more than he needed to put a man in the ground.

After several nervous minutes slipping around corners and kicking open sheds, the senior cop declared the lot empty and called his men back inside the station. Searching further would mean separating, and he wouldn't have that on his conscience. The dispatcher on the van radio said reinforcements were coming to serach the neighborhood. They were to stay put and interview the other passengers in case someone on the Wino Line had a clue what Bertinelli was doing. They soon discovered many of the passengers were asleep. One had wandered into a drainage ditch. Two didn't speak English.

It would be a long night.

* * *

Arturo Bertinelli wheezed to catch his breath. The red and blue glare of a passing police cruiser slowly faded from the brick walls outside. That was the closest patrol yet. Arturo was laying prone across the front seats of the car he stole half an hour ago. This was the third time he had hurried into an alley to dodge the cops. Arturo wasn't sure when the stolen vehicle would be reported. Maybe not until sunrise, maybe in five minutes. When it was reported, the game was up. He resolved to ditch the car at the earliest convenience and find another one.

Arturo hadn't always been such a distinguished, sophisticated criminal. He had done plenty of odd jobs in his youth, including a stint stealing cars for a chop shop. To his pleasant surprise, he hadn't lost the knack. He put the old lemon in reverse and backed into the street. Normally, in this situation he would stay on foot as soon as he reached the first good crowd. Hiding in Gotham City wasn't difficult if you knew what you were doing.

But tonight was different. He was no ordinary fugitive. He forced to assume that the GCPD would keep pouring out patrols until there were two on every corner. They would find him eventually. He had to get out of their jurisdiction. He had to get to the Narrows.

Gotham City was divided into seven districts. Some were mostly nice, and some were less nice. But when people said that Gotham was a festering wound on the Earth, they were probably thinking of the Narrows, the one district in Gotham that was actually a festering wound on the Earth. It brought the average down.

Books could be written on why, exactly, the Narrows was so terrible. It seemed to house every urban vice and dysfunction that had ever befallen mankind. Even the problems that normally canceled each other out, like scarlet fever and overcrowding, or flooding and boredom, seemed to coexist in the Narrows. Rumor had it no census-taker had ever left alive, but the best guess on the city literature was that the Narrows housed a quarter million people, yet it was also a nugget of popular folklore that the GCPD kept only five precinct houses in the district,

Sane, well-adjusted people did not visit the Narrows if at all possible. This was easy. The Narrows was literally a pit, an artificial gorge dug out of Gotham Bay for extra living space. Gotham had been built on a swamp, so this sort of engineering wasn't unheard of, but it was still the most ambitious project of its kind outside of the Netherlands. The streets of the Narrows averaged fifty feet below sea level. This inferiority to sea level was frighteningly evident: the looming Gotham Dike holding back that sea could be seen from anywhere in the district. And when it was too dark to see, the Dike could still be heard, creaking softly with the weight of the ocean all through the night.

Officially, the Narrows was normal American territory filled with normal American citizens. Officially, the city didn't have plans to quarantine the district on a minute's notice if the social fabric finally self-destructed, something visitors uniformly believed had already happened. It was common knowledge that if a criminal absolutely had to dodge the law, the Narrows was the place to hide. Most Gothamites agreed that this was a decent alternative to prison. The only people who lived in the Narrows were people desperate enough to live in the Narrows. Sane, well-adjusted felons tended to avoid it.

This was especially true for the Families. When your name was Falcone, or Nobilio, or Maroni, or indeed, Bertinelli, you commanded instant respect from anyone in Gotham City. Your face was as good as body armor. No one would touch you. The single exception was the Narrows. Its tenements hid gangs of sadists who couldn't care less if they lived tomorrow, let alone who you were. No one had ever heard of a high-ranking Family member entering the district. It wasn't unthinkable, but it would be the last place the police would look for him. And when the police bothered to hunt any fugitive in the Narrows, it was always in convoys of twenty cops minimum. The President could call for his head on a pike, and he would still have a head-start while they spent half a day organizing.

The road signs into the Narrows didn't exactly say "Warning" or "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here", but their font and color said it for them. The rusting edges and bullet holes reinforced that point. Gotham was a vertical city, but the sheer cliff above the Narrows put the rest of its hills to shame. And the cliff edge was visible from disturbingly far away. Most real estate in the city tried to stuff three apartments and a grocer into the space of a hog dog stand, but there was more and more unused property near the Narrows. The last block was nearly barren – a no man's land.

Arturo took a deep breath and steered the stolen car onto the long set of single-lane switchbacks that led down into the pit. No building in the Narrows was tall enough to reach above its edge, leading to the strange sensation that he was slowly gliding over a city from out of the sky. A quarter million people lived here, but his was the only vehicle on the path either coming or going.

When Arturo reached the bottom, he stopped and surveyed the wasteland. He heard babies crying and windows breaking. Something down an ally was on fire. Dark figures shuffled at the edge of his vision. For the first time in years, he locked his car doors.

Arturo drove slowly. Cars weren't common, but potholes were everywhere, and most of the streetlights were broken. It was also difficult to tell which businesses were open. Most looked condemned, but he heard noises inside just as many. Occasionally, small groups of men would walk beside the car. If they got close to the door, Arturo rolled down the window and stuck the gun out. This scared them off. He wondered how long that trick would work.

Eventually, he found a sign on a building that advertised rooms to let for fifty cents. The building didn't seem like any conventional hotel. In fact, he couldn't guess its original use. It could have been a fire station or a grain silo for all he knew. He had no money, but he figured his new coat ought to be worth a few nights. It was easy to find the enterance; only one door wasn't chained shut. Arturo had visited plenty of establishments where the man or lady at the front desk was hiding a weapon. This was the first time he had seen a desk clerk openly carry a baseball bat.

His coat bought a room for two nights. Their conversation was short. It clearly wasn't the first time a guest had bartered dirty clothing for a place to sleep. At the top of the stairs was a baby in dippers smoking a cigarette. The baby ignored him. At the end of the hall, his door had a butcher's cleaver sunk into it. His room was about the scummiest corner of an attic he had ever seen, but it was quiet, and no one knew he was here, and he fell asleep in seconds.

* * *

Arturo Bertinelli woke to a strong light in his face. He yawned and reached over to close the blinds. Instead, his hand bumped into a stranger's knee. Then he remembered that he was in an attic with no windows, and the Narrows was too far underground to catch the sunrise anyway. He scrambled to sit up and peer above the glare.

It was a flashlight. He could see the huge hand holding it, the fingers as thick as sausages and the knuckles like an ape. He could see the tailored black suit sleeve attached to that hand, and he could see the crisp white shirt under the suit with a red silk tie held by a silver tiepin. He couldn't see the face, but he could see the empty holster under the man's armpit.

The man saw he was awake and lowered the flashlight. The beam drifted down to his other hand which was holding a Hargrave .31.

The spit dried in Arturo's throat.

Since the end of the Bootlegger Vendettas and the Peace of Falcone, the made men of the city rarely had to flex their muscle. They were the establishment, after all. But when they resorted to force, the Gotham Families cleaned up after themselves. One way or another - cement mixers, lye barrels, furnaces, pig farms, international waters – they stayed discreet. There was one exception, the Hargrave Arms .31 Caliber Automatic Pistol. Less than forty still existed, owned mainly as a sort of sheriff's badge for the Gotham mobs' internal affairs. Only Family soldiers could carry the pistol, and only with explicit orders from one of the dons. Even senior capos like Arturo had to obey a stranger holding one.

The Families enforcers employed the Hargrave .31 for its two distinguishing features. First, its rarity. You can't sign a personal message if half the city owns the same letterhead. The police never investigated shootings if they found its trademark rounds at the scene. Second, the cartridge was a low-grain, brass-jacketed animal that made clean little holes in whatever you pointed it at. In other words, it killed slowly. Every regime had a secret police, every cult had an inquisition, and every criminal network had enforcers, and they all knew the value of making an example.

The ape said nothing, but his gestures said enough. He guided Arturo down the stairs. In the lobby were two more big men in tailored suits. They followed behind as his guide led him out. Two trucks idled on the street, each with a driver, also suited. Arturo was forced into the middle seat of the rear truck. The drivers shifted into high gear as soon as the doors shut.

They glided through the Narrows at five above the speed limit. This was extraordinary, given that the poor roads forced most traffic to putter along at ten or more below it. They didn't stop at intersections, instead sounding their horns and trusting that this passed along the message.

Arturo quickly grew numb to the reckless pace. He spent the dull minutes trying to recognize his escorts. He didn't know every face in the Bertinelli organization, but he knew all the big shots, and they wouldn't escort him with no-name schmoes. But try as he might, these gentlemen were unfamiliar. He wondered how they would have reacted if they had noticed the police pistol under his pillow.

To his surprise, he didn't feel apprehensive about this journey. In fact, he didn't feel anything, just a throbbing in his hand and a sharp headache. His eyes itched; the world was a gray haze. He knew their destination. He knew it ought to reduce him to tremoring clay, but nothing seemed to matter now. He couldn't even bring himself to beg. He slouched low in his seat. When did he kiss reality goodbye? How long ago had he been asleep in his warm bed with his beautiful wife in his comfortable home? Hours? _Caro Dio_. It felt like days. How much abuse could an old body take?

If time passed, Arturo didn't notice. At some point, he felt a rough nudge in his side and sat up. He couldn't hear the engine, so the truck was stopped. A smear of blood orange dawn, real this time, peaked through the windshield. He rubbed his eyes and saw they were parked in front of a three-story Queen Anne-style Victorian house on a tree-lined street. The house was a classic of its kind, with a generous porch, balconies, towers, steep gables, and chimmeys, all in conservative browns and indigos. Arturo looked around and saw the towers of the city only blocks away. This puzzled him. The only streets near downtown with homes like this were around Hudson University. Why had they bought him here? None of the Bertinellis lived in the area, and they wouldn't conduct this business around strangers.

Another nudge forced Arturo out of the truck. He landed roughly on his feet. His three silent escorts led him briskly to the porch as the trucks drove away. The front door opened as they reached it. Two of the escorts stayed outside. The main ape entered behind him. He was led to a bathroom near the front hall where the ape finally spoke, telling him to wash his face and get dressed fast. He entered the bathroom and found a shirt and trousers hanging from a rack. Arturo washed the grime and blood from his face and arms with a wet towel, then pulled a brush through his hair. He put on the simple outfit, leaving his pajamas on the floor. The clothes fit perfectly.

He walked out, and his escort grunted in approval. As they passed through several rooms, Arturo found each had a man or two, reading the paper or chatting softly. After a final hallway, he entered the kitchen. A pair of old men sat eating oranges at a small table near the window. Arturo's nerves were too frayed for genuine fear, but he still felt vertigo seeing them together. This explained who those apes were and how they found him so quickly, and it strongly suggested why they brought him here.

His escort stepped politely back into the hall, closing the door behind him. The old men turned, eying Arturo inscrutably.

Arturo nodded at one. "Frankie, _buongiorno,_ my respects, cousin," he faced the other, "And it's an honor to see you, Don Falcone."

The two crimelords glanced at each other.

Frank Bertinelli was clearly related to Arturo, though a little older and with a few extra pounds tucked above the belt line. He didn't have Arturo's neat mustache, and he wore thick glasses. Frank was usually more quick to smile than Arturo, but this morning his expression was annoyed.

Carmine Falcone was a long-limbed man with soft features and intelligent eyes. His combed black hair was receding and touched with white, and the first liver spots were showing on his thinning cheeks. He had the air of an aristocrat and seemed as mild as a professor or the director of a bank.

Relations between the Families were as cordial as such relations could be, but it was rare for the bosses to meet in person, and the meetings traditionally took place over dinner. For them to summon Arturo at breakfast meant this had been arranged on very short notice and couldn't be delayed. Falcone had the most extensive network of friends and informants in the city. If anyone could find a bum in the attic of a random hotel in the Narrows in less than a night, he was the man to do it. Falcone was also famous for his real estate empire, which was vast even by mob standards. It wasn't a surprise he owned a home here, and using it made sense. Bosses typically tried to meet in neutral territory, and none of the Families had claims in the area.

Don Falcone gestured for Arturo to take a seat, which he did.

Frank, his cousin and boss, frowned. Arturo hoped he focused more on the first relationship than the second. "Arutro, just what is going on with you? Marie n' your children are gone. All the cops are after your neck. You get into some brawl in your apartment, and now there's a hole in the wall there. And we find you in some flophouse in the _Narrows_!" He said the place like it was a profanity.

Falcone added, "The police don't appreciate being shot at. We depend on their cooperation."

Frank concluded, "And what happened to your hand?"

Arturo didn't speak for several seconds. When he did, his tone was matter-of-fact. "Batman's after me."

This raised their eyebrows. Falcone seemed curious. "Batman."

"He vandalized my house, scared my family," the dons glared at this offense, "I sent them out of the city to hide."

Frank looked hurt. "Arturo, come on, you get in trouble, why didn't you come to me? Why are the police after you?"

"Batman was trying to pin me to a slave ring."

"A slave ring? What?"

"He had forged papers, Frankie. Said the law was going to take me down, and that you wouldn't back me once you heard about his phony evidence. I panicked, Frankie."

Falcone looked shrewdly at him. "He attacks you at home, yes? How did you end up at your apartment?"

"Well, he wasn't actually at the house, see. He just left his mark behind, to scare me I think. I went to the apartment to hide, but he found me somehow. That's where we talked. He wanted me to squeal on the Family in federal court, said otherwise the cops would pin me as a slaver. I wouldn't do it, of course, and that made him angry." Arturo lifted his injured hand and gestured at it.

Falcone replied, "You fought him off?"

"No. I had called our Navy pals for help."

Frank slapped the table. "What? You don't come to me, but you call the Navy? What is this?"

Falcone held up a hand. "Forgive me. Batman threatens you with a case laid down by federal men, but you call the military to protect you? Why?"

"I didn't know it was a federal deal then. I had called them at home so-"

Falcone interrupted him. "My memory isn't what it used to be, Mr. Arturo. You meet Batman, and he blackmails you. You call our partners in the Navy when you see your house desecrated, but Batman didn't actually reveal his blackmail until he showed it at your apartment?"

Arturo nodded. "Yeah, that's-"

"Then, if you'll forgive my impertinence, Don Bertinelli," Frank gestured for him to continue, "Then what scared you from asking your cousin's help back at your house?"

Frank suddenly realized what Falcone was getting at. He sat up straighter with an owlish glare through his glasses.

Falcone continued. "You had a reason to avoid your cousin's attention? Why?"

The air around the table was silent and heavy.

Arturo stuttered. "I, I-"

Frank crushed the orange slice in his hand, and the juice dripped to the tabletop. "Yeah, Arturo, why?"

"I don't … I ..."

Falcone leaned forward. "Friends, we are men of business. Arturo if you made a mistake, we all play our cards wrong from time to time." He shrugged fondly, "You've been loyal to your cousin for many years, true?"

Arturo dumbly nodded. "Yeah, yes I-"

"I would imagine, Don Bertinelli, that you normally trust Arturo's good intentions, if perhaps not his wisdom?"

Frank scowled and said nothing.

Falcone continued. "But Arturo, that also means now is the time for the whole story."

Arturo pleaded, grateful for the lifeline. "Listen, business hasn't been great. I learned a few months ago that I was nearly out of cash, and nothing was turning a profit. Then I hear about this customs problem with some commie immigrants..."

As Arturo spoke, mostly to his cousin in the tone of a confession, Don Falcone opened the kitchen door and called in an assistant. If only took a few whispered words, then the assistant stepped back out. The young man went to a phone on the other side of the house. The Don had friends in high places whom he could call to ask what the authorities knew, and the Don had cabins deep in the woods that needed to be furnished to hide the fool, should circumstances dictate that the fool ought to be hidden. In any case, it was a place where they could pick his mind far more thoroughly.


	8. News Travels Fast In This Town

Five hours earlier.  
  
Steve Trevor lifted the cup of coffee dregs to his lips and tried to sip. The cup hadn't held liquid in ten minutes, but the act was ceremonial. Sipping bad coffee was what one did in the lobby of a crummy police station after midnight, like avoiding eye contact with the desk sergeant or trying not to think about the stains on the walls. The cop who brought him in for questioning and was now taking a call in a nearby office. Steve wasn't sure who was on the other end of that call, but their conversation started an hour ago, and both parties occasionally yelled.  
  
Whatever sanitized record of tonight eventually hit the books would say he was here to help the police investigate Arturo Bertinelli. That was true enough; Steve was the last man to speak with Arturo. But Steve had answered the cop's few questions when they first arrived, and the cop hardly seemed interested in him. Yet he was still here. Steve's best guess was that he was a hostage.  
  
He still didn't fully understand the situation, but now he knew that Arturo Bertinelli was a gangster, the kind who shared tips with Atilla the Hun by the sound of it. Apparently, the military had people who paid attention to gangsters, and someone with a bushel of stars on their shoulder had arranged for Steve to protect Arturo for reasons unknown. Then someone with even more stars heard about it, blew a fuse, and promptly took that protection away. Arturo was going to be arrested soon. Somehow the FBI were involved. All Steve could say for sure was that a lot of important people were talking, and at the bottom of this information pecking order was the GCPD. The poor local cops were probably holding him so the War Department would keep them in the loop. Poor guys might know less than he did.  
  
Steve sympathized, but that didn't make waiting any easier. He had left Diana a message when his interview ended. They needed to have a long conversation of their own. He crushed his paper cup and tossed it at the trash can. It bounced twice on the rim then fell to the floor. Steve sighed.  
  
The nearby office door opened, and his cop walked out.  
  
"Hey, Trevor."  
  
Steve looked up. "Yeah?"  
  
The cop gestured to the door. "Yer off the hook, bud."  
  
"Bully." Steve stood and stretched his neck. The desk sergeant tossed him his pistol, and he slipped into its holster. Steve nodded. "Know a good taxi service? Assuming my car's still where I left it."  
  
The cop snorted. "Nix the cab, I'll drop you off."  
  
Steve followed him out the door to the station lot. "You don't have to."  
  
"No problem. Figured you had some real lumps tonight, eh?"  
  
"No kidding."  
  
"Smoke?"  
  
"Thanks."  
  
The cop tapped two cigarettes from a pack and brought out a lighter inscribed with the police union crest. They stopped in the middle of the lot. The two sudden embers were the only dots of red around. Dark blue smoke lifted into the night, invisible in an instant.  
  
Steve coughed and hacked. "...Not bad."  
  
"Dirty liar."  
  
"Heh. I never heard of this brand before."  
  
"I think by law in most states they can only use its ingredients for grout cleaner."  
  
"Hm."  
  
They smoked a minute. Steve mused that any day you had to wear a tie for sixteen hours straight was a bad day. He was surprised the cop was so friendly.  
  
"This is nice."  
  
The cop nodded thoughtfully. "Ya know, my brother just enlisted."  
  
"No kidding."  
  
"Off to Paris Island."  
  
"Marines. _Jeesh_."  
  
"That tough?"  
  
"Don't ask me. I just fly planes for a living."  
  
"Well, he's a tough little squirt. We'll see."  
  
They took another drag. Steve tried to think of something friendly.  
  
"My cousin's a cop."  
  
"'Zat so?"  
  
Steve nodded. "Detroit."  
  
"Oh, I hear it's nice out there."  
  
"Best city on Earth."  
  
"No argument here. Good for him."  
  
"Thanks. And thanks for the smoke."  
  
"No problem." The cop dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his heel. "Let's hit the road."  
  
As they crossed the parking lot, a dented police cruiser sped through the entrance with its headlamps on. It squealed to a stop in front of them, still rocking on its suspension. They held their hands against the glare.  
  
The lights went off, and the driver cut the ignition. Steve could hardly see the figure that struggled through the door, but the cruiser frame lifted as as he stepped out - his weight had made it sag. Steve's new cop friend quietly cursed.  
  
The figure slouched up. "Hey, youse!" He was roughly as large and loud as a piano: tall, scruffy, big overcoat, big gut, dirty shirt. He spit on the pavement. "Yeah, I'm talkin' to youse!"  
  
Steve's cop friend took a step forward. "What's this all about?"  
  
The big man elbowed him out of the way, "Pipe down, clownfish. I ain't talkin' to you, I'm talkin' to this guy. You Steve Trevor?"  
  
Steve crossed his arms. "Yeah. And who might you be?"  
  
The man pulled out a folding badge. "Detective Harvey Bullock. Got some questions that need answers, so cupcake here is gonna lead us both to a nice, cozy interrogation room." The cop was about to say something, but Bullock shuffled past him and grabbed Steve by the arm. "And get me some coffee while you're at it."  
  
Bullock was stronger than he looked, but Steve eventually tugged his arm away. "Hold on, I answered your questions."  
  
"Nah, you answered _his_ questions." Bullock jabbed a finger back at the cop. "Some uniforms can't find the petals on a daisy, and since I'm actually on the case you unwittingly fouled up tonight, and since I'm actually good at my job, we're going to have to do it all over again."  
  
"Look, officer-"  
  
"Detective."  
  
"Detective, your case will have to wait. I have Air Force business to attend to."  
  
"Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. See, the folks I answer to think the folks you answer to might be on the wrong side of a big, ugly manure-based weather front. You can imagine why I want we should chit-chat first."  
  
"How long is this going to take?"  
  
Bullock stuck a toothpick in his mouth and chewed. "S'long as it has to, bud."  


\---

  
Diana Prince rubbed her body with a coarse cloth until her skin shone red. She didn't know how long she had been soaking in the small hotel tub, but her fingers were pruned and the once-scalding water was almost cold (indoor plumbing was divine). She occasionally stopped to rest, fading away in the scent of porcelain and soap, but then she would feel it again: the muck of dead beasts flooding her eyes and nostrils. Diana would grit her teeth and scrub and scrub until she was clean.  
  
There was a knock on the front door. Diana nearly jumped out of the water. She scrambled on the slick tile for the hotel's complementary bathrobe. Tying the knot, she rammed her way out of the bathroom, pushed the mane of wet hair out of her face, and paused a moment to prepare a less anxious voice.  
  
When Diana finally spoke, she almost sounded calm. "Yes? Hello?" She leaned her ear against the door in anticipation.  
  
But the voice she heard back wasn't his. "Room service, miss."  
  
Puzzled, Diana opened the door and peeked out. In the hall was a young lady pushing a cart with a stack of linens on it. The lady handed her a folded paper. "Telegram for you."  
  
"For me?"  
  
"Your name's Prince?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"We usually don't deliver after midnight, but it was marked urgent. Hope you don't mind."  
  
"That's quite fine. Thank you." Diana opened the paper and skimmed it. She glanced at the time-stamp, then at her wall clock. "Excuse me, this was sent over an hour ago."  
  
"Sorry, I knocked on your door earlier. You must not have heard me. Figured I'd try again on my next lap."  
  
"Well, yes, I was … preoccupied."  
  
"As you say, miss. Have a pleasant night."  
  
"Thank you, you as well."  
  
Diana shut the door and huffed. She balled the telegram up and threw it at her bed.  
  
It read:

>   
>  **HOPE YOU AT HOTEL AND COMFORTABLE. STAY.**   
>    
>  **IMPERATIVE WE TALK FIRST OPPORTUNITY. STAY. ORDERS HAVE CHANGED. STAY. THINGS COMPLICATED. PLEASE STAY. DON'T LEAVE HOTEL.**   
>    
>  **PROBLEM WITH LAW. COPS TAKEN ME TO WEST 43 ST. STATION. LONG STORY. ALMOST DONE. SHOULD BE BACK FORTY MINUTES AT MOST.**   
>    
>  **MISS YOU, ANGEL.**   
> 

Diana paced across the room, absentmindedly smoothing the fabric on her bathrobe. She enjoyed the little comfort after all she had seen that evening. A bathrobe was about the nearest garment America had to the tunics she grew up in - no buttons or clasps or zippers, no starched seams or fitted waists. Her only concern was that the robe was cut for the average American woman whom she towered over by a foot and a half.  
  
Diana walked past the standing mirror. She wasn't bothered by the robe's immodesty, but seeing herself brought out a chuckle and a flush of embarrassment. There was a fad among certain Amazons to wear as little as possible. They argued that the body was the most fundamental gift of the goddesses, and hiding gifts was a sin. Diana, like the majority of Amazons, found the fad silly. Themescaya was covered in brambles and bushes, and seeing a body-sized rash or sunburn wasn't a gift to anyone. Besides, royalty would never engage in it. She wondered what her queen mother would say now. Diana's expression fell. She had asked herself that question nonstop when she first arrived. Everyone was a stranger, and every barbaric custom reminded her of just how far she had traveled. Diana had her mission, but at times it had been so lonely it made her sick. Was she doing the right thing? Would her mother approve?  
  
As weeks passed, she asked that question less often, only every day, then every other day, until she rarely wished for her mother's guidance at all. She began to enjoy her radical independence. But now Diana could only think about the poor man with the broken hand, about the pool of dead beasts and the fell monster who dwelled there. The Amazons had always known Man's World was a nest of predators. How shameful that she was the first in millennia to forget that. She was here to protect her people. She was to act as their champion  
  
And she had to protect herself too, no forgetting that. She studied her figure in the mirror: the fading burn on her cheek, the bite along her throat, the thin white lines on her limbs where deeper scrapes healed.  
  
There was only one decent man she could trust, and he had left her. He promised to return, but he still wasn't here.  
  
Diana forcibly stopped that train of thought. A rational part of her pointed out that he probably hadn't returned because this wretched city had trapped him, not through any decision of his own. _Of course_. He was too dutiful for any other explanation; she always respected that. Well, no mere civil guards restrained her allies. The Princess of the Amazons would never be a passive bystander. As heir to a rightful throne, Diana was raised to hold the utmost respect for a nation's laws and authorities, but no more. Tonight, her patience had suffered its last.  


\---

  
Diana Prince unfolded herself from the backseat of a yellow taxi. For a city with such titanic structures, everything meant to fit a person seemed paradoxically small. Diana was wearing the same blouse and pencil skirt from what seemed like weeks ago but was only that evening. The hotel concierge had given her the address for the 43rd street police station and drawn her a map. It was almost a surprise that strangers could still be kind and helpful in this fallen place.  
  
The street was empty, but it was a clean neighborhood, the sort where empty meant 'peaceful' instead of 'abandoned'. The lights were brass antiques, bright and steady, and the sidewalk was lined with benches and mailboxes. None of the windows were broken. Diana soon found herself at the bottom of the short stairs leading to the frosted-glass door of the station house. Diana's eyes narrowed. She balled her hands into fists and took the first two steps.  
  
"I don't suggest you do that, dear, though I wouldn't blame you."  
  
It was a lady's voice, warm yet rough. Diana spun and found a short woman sitting on a nearby bench. Somehow, Diana had passed her unwittingly.  
  
The woman glanced over. "Sorry if I startled you, I understand you've had an awful long night."  
  
Diana stepped back onto the sidewalk and peered at her. "How do you know how long my night had been?"  
  
The stranger sat just outside the ring of lamplight, but Diana could soon see she was a stocky woman in her middle years with dark brown skin (skin color was extraordinarily important in Man's World, though Diana had yet to hear a convincing reason why). The woman said nothing.  
  
Diana pressed again, "Have we met, miss?"  
  
The woman smiled. "Heh, _miss_. Not in the conventional sense, no, but you'll find we run in the same circles."  
  
"You must be mistaken, I don't run in circles."  
  
The woman paused a moment and looked askance at her. "That was a figure of speech, dear. Let's just say I'm a friend of a friend of a friend. Call me Amanda Waller." She stuck out a hand.  
  
Diana crossed her arms. "Sorry, I have no time for talk." She started to climb the steps again.  
  
Amanda spoke behind her. "Three minutes, it's all I ask. Then I promise you'll get everything you want in there."  
  
Diana hesitated and looked back curiously. "You said you wouldn't blame me for what I wish to do. Why do you believe you know what that is?"  
  
"Long story, honey."  
  
Diana kept her arms crossed and stared patiently. Amanda shrugged, then lit a cigar and took a contemplative puff. "I work for the government. My colleagues and I pay attention to anything, how shall I say ... out of the ordinary."  
  
"That sounds like a vast jurisdiction."  
  
"You have no idea, dearie. Regardless, I heard through the grapevine about several counter-espionage raids around Washington this year that fell out of the ordinary. Spies and malcontents were being subdued by a tall woman in what all the witnesses described as either a flag-patterned swimsuit or an extras costume out of _Julius Caesar_." Amanda paused, choosing her next words carefully. "Very little happens in Washington that I can't find out about when I start shaking trees, yet no one had a clue about this curious lady, or at least no one was willing to talk. But I'm stubborn about these things. I explored the mystery and discovered that each of the operations had one detail in common: the involvement of Captain Steven Archibald Trevor."  
  
Diana's eyebrows lifted. "His name is Archibald?"  
  
"So you've met."  
  
"I mean-"  
  
Amanda waved away the reaction. "I made a casual effort to learn more about the good Captain Trevor and uncovered two interesting facts. One, not long ago, he went missing on what the records call a reconnaissance mission. He was declared lost at sea but returned no worse for wear eight days later. And two, soon afterward he was seen in the frequent company of an assistant by the name of Diana Prince. Furthermore, this assistant has been trying diligently to meet with senior diplomats and lawmakers in her off-hours." She looked Diana in the eye. "I've heard rumors on what was discussed in those meetings. To be candid, I think we could have a mutually-fruitful discussion tonight."  
  
Diana said nothing for several long moments. Amanda seemed content to wait and enjoy her cigar.  
  
"Elaborate."  
  
"For my own reasons, which I'd prefer to keep under my hat for now, I've been very interested in you. Now, I'm certainly not involved in whatever the military's been up to here in Gotham tonight, but I make it a point to keep my ears open. And when I heard a few hours ago that a colleague of mine in the Army was assigning a task to Captain Trevor, well." She let the idea finish itself, but added. "Gotham has a certain reputation."  
  
Diana frowned and lifted her chin. "I trust you mean a certain infamy."  
  
Amanda gestured indifferently. "I figured there was an above-average chance something interesting would happen, so I hopped on a plane and stopped by. Lo and behold, when my flight touches down, rumors are already bubbling up that some shiny lady in her underclothes scared off the Batman! My, my, that piqued my interest something fierce. Felt like Christmas come early."  
  
"You know of this bat man?"  
  
"He and I have crossed paths."  
  
"You have shared the same paths?"  
  
"Under equally antagonistic circumstances, I assure you."  
  
"Engaged in combat?"  
  
Amanda shrugged noncommittally. "I'd love to swap stories sometime, but what I find more pressing are the rumors of what came next. Police chatter says you assaulted some workers at a meat-packing plant, lifted a cop car, tossed two cops into a dumpster, then outran two others on foot."  
  
"I was-"  
  
" _While they were driving._ "  
  
"You must see-"  
  
Amanda held up a hand. "I trust you had your reasons. Batman is nothing if not a pain in the rump, and if you don't mind me saying, it sounded like you were in a bit of a temper. So I made a few calls and discovered that your man was tied up at this little police station, and I figured you might be tempted to do something about it." She paused. "I hope you're no longer in a temper."  
  
Diana spoke coldly, "My aim is justified."  
  
"May I ask why you're dressed for your day job? That other outfit was quite something, if witnesses can be believed."  
  
"My battle dress is ... it represents righteous public deeds. It is for my mission. Here, my goal is..."  
  
"Is what?"  
  
"Personal."  
  
Amanda nodded to herself. "I see." She smoked her cigar. "Speaking of your mission. I assume a smart gal like you has realized by now that our system, by which I mean the control of our federal government, is designed to ignore the agendas of strangers. And you have a real whopper by the sound of it."  
  
"It's-"  
  
"I mean, really dear. We barely listen to the voters. Now, you could keep trotin' obediently from meeting to meeting while powerful geezers close doors in your face, or …"  
  
Diana couldn't help but lean in. "Or what?"  
  
"Or you could get so riled up at the injustice of it all that you knock down a police station, which would feel awfully vindicating, I'm sure. But becoming an enemy of the state might put a stopper in whatever goals you've been working towards." Amanda shrugged. "Or …"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Or you go home, get some rest, and give me a call after breakfast." She slipped a business card into Diana's coat pocket and patted it. "I'll introduce you to the real movers and shakers in this country. Then I'll show you how to make 'em move and shake."  
  
Diana glared at her suspiciously. "Why do you offer help to me?"  
  
Amanda chuckled. "A shrewd one. Listen, I assume that your current deal with the Army is hidden so well because it's a causal, under-the-table arrangement. Or maybe you don't have an arrangement. Maybe you're just helpin' out your man without either of you telling anybody. That would explain why I haven't heard of you, plus why you stepped in on the Captain's sudden errand tonight when I know there weren't instructions for you." Diana said nothing. Amanda looked at her candidly. "Why do I offer my help? I want to see you do what you've already been doin', fighting the good fight against spies. I only want to provide you with official sanction and support. You'll get twice as much done with half the effort. Then I get to rest a little easier knowing the country I love is under the protection of a guardian with unimpeachable character and, let's be honest, enough muscle to scare off the Batman."  
  
The edge of Diana's lip turned up in a hint of a grin. She forced it back into a serious line. "I will call. I promise nothing, but we may speak further."  
  
"That's all I ask." Amanda made a wide wave with her arm, as if stretching a cramp. "As promised, you'll get what you want in nine."  
  
Diana looked puzzled. "Nine what?"  
  
Amanda continued. "Eight, seven, six."  
  
"Oh, you're counting."  
  
"Five, four, three, two, one."  
  
Both women looked at the station doors.  
  
They remained shut.  
  
Diana frowned. "What was supposed to happen?"  
  
Amanda grumbled something and tapped the embers off the end of her cigar.  
  
"What did you say?"  
  
"Hold on."  
  
Seconds passed.  
  
"I don't think your-"  
  
The doors opened. Steve Trevor stumbled out, tired as a dog.  
  
Amanda rolled her eyes. "Finally."  
  
Diana ran up the steps and embraced him. Stunned, he held her at arms length.  
  
"Diana ... you're here."  
  
She smiled brightly. "I am."  
  
Steve looked at her closely under the light. He saw the mark on her neck. "Diana?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Why do you have a hickey?"  


\---

  
One minute ago.  
  
The Boys Anti-Tank Rifle was the one of the largest firearms in the free world. It was British, but the Americans owned a few for special outfits like their Army Rangers and Marine Raiders. At the moment, there were only seven in the state of Gotham, and all were aimed at Diana Prince's back from a pair of high windows a block behind her.  
  
As their name implied, anti-tank rifles normally hunted bigger prey, but an expert marksman was perfectly capable of hitting a woman-sized target at that distance, and Lieutenant Slade Wilson and his team of expert marksman had plenty of practice with the weapon. None of them were eager to pull the trigger, but only because the recoil of firing the huge cartridge caused bruising and neck pain. If the target tried to enter the station, they wouldn't hesitate. Wilson and five of his teammates could comfortably hit the center of mass, but their designated sharpshooter, Private Floyd Lawton, was in a world of his own. He liked to say he could neuter a fly at hundred yards. There was no doubt he could place a shot though the lady's eye or heart or throat from here, as surely as other men flipped a light-switch.  
  
The team had been warned that their target was unnaturally durable. They weren't especially concerned. They crossed paths with unnatural beings almost monthly now. Experience had shown that of all the strange and wonderful mysteries in the world, very few of those mysteries could live with an anti-tank round in the throat.  
  
They sat in tense silence, steadying their sights whenever their target neared the door, but she always turned away.  
  
Finally, the boss gave the wave. The team ducked back from the window. They silently packed their weapons and disappeared.


	9. Unorthodox Problem Solving

Falco Deliveries was the city's premier courier service for moving small items on short notice. Watching its young couriers race by on their bicycles, casually crossing private property and breaking traffic laws, was something of a local tradition. But Falco Deliveries also provided another service which wasn't known to the public: the firm kept items anonymously for future delivery-on-demand.

The service worked like this: a customer could go to his local FD office and drop off an package. The desk clerk (let's call him Adam) would slip the package into a standard box and take it to the back room where the shipping manager (let's call her Betty) would label it with a code and copy the code onto a note in a sealed envelope. Betty would give the envelope to Adam to pass to the customer. Adam would never know the code, and Betty would never see the customer or the contents of the package. It was called a double-blind system. These packages would then be randomly shipped to one of several warehouses for long-term storage. The customer would pay Falco Deliveries a hefty fee to hold the package for a given number of weeks. If at any point someone contacted an FD office with the right code - whether in person, over the phone, or by any other means - then the package was delivered, no questions asked.

Naturally, the service catered to people with something to hide. It certainly ferried every sort of contraband. Jewelers and other luxury retailers occasionally shipped their goods this way and sent their regular trucks as a decoy. Investigative reporters, gang snitches, and others who wished to pass along evidence in the event of their untimely demise signed up for a special plan that delivered their package if the code wasn't received in time. Falco Deliveries would have been crushed under warrants and subpoenas ages ago except that many cogs in the legal system used them as well.

As one might expect given the nature of the service, FD offices saw customers try all sorts of disguises. Still, no employee had ever received a delivery code by rat.

Clancy, as the rat was named, waited patiently behind a telephone pole outside their 9th Street office for two hours until the first employee arrived just before dawn. Clancy held back as the big human unlocked the front door and walked through it, then he slipped inside just before the door closed. There were many curious smells in the little room, but none were food or danger, so Clancy ignored them. It was Clancy's mission to be found and, as much as it went against his instincts, that meant waiting in plain sight. Humans were practically senseless, but their eyes weren't too bad, at least if there was plenty of light and you walked right in front of them.

After a few false starts, Clancy climbed onto the main counter. He stood on his hind legs, pawing the air and wiggling his whiskers. Predictably, the human took a long time to notice him. Predictably, when the human did notice him, it yelled and stumbled backward into the wall. This was the scary part. Humans were ogres; they could react rashly to the most civilized greeting. It was all a rat could do to stand still and act unthreatening. Fortunately, this human didn't reach for anything heavy. It peered at him and muttered some sounds in Human. Clancy returned to all four feet and turned so the human would see his flank. It worked! The human saw the bit of paper tied around his abdomen with a bit of string. Clancy shook his rump to get the point across. Finally, gingerly, the human untied the string and took the paper. Relief! The string had chaffed something fierce, and Clancy was pleased to have it off. He squeaked his appreciation and hopped off the counter. The human didn't need to open the door. He could find his own way out.

\---

Marta Cruz, shift manager of the Falco Deliveries on 9th Street, had lived in Gotham too long to doubt her eyes, but it was still hard to process that she was holding a note delivered by a rat. The note was short, just four typical storage codes, each followed by a delivery address - some post office boxes downtown. Marta phoned the different warehouse foremen until she found the four packages with her codes. They would be sent out on the first run of the day.

\---

Nancy Kingsolver worked at Wayne Enterprises and was pleased as a peach about it. Just saying so sounded awfully impressive to her kin back in Arkansas. She could even claim to report to Mr. Bruce Wayne, which was even more impressive, and Nancy was sure it made Ellie-Jean and all the other girls from town as jealous as old hens. Mostly, what she told folks back home was true. Nancy neglected to mention that she was technically the assistant to Mr. Wayne's assistant's assistant's assistant, and while her orders did come from Mr. Wayne, they traveled through a dozen intermediaries before they arrived at her desk in the executive secretarial pool. Half the company reported could say they reported to Mr. Wayne by that logic.

Mr. Wayne did nod at her once, so that was nice. At least she thought it was at her. And Nancy was responsible for a few tasks that she was assured Mr. Wayne used directly, though these were rare. For example, every morning she stopped by the post office on Wayne Avenue and checked fourteen PO boxes for mail. Bruce Wayne was an important man, she was told, and many people wanted his attention. He couldn't attend to everyone equally, so he gave different addresses to different groups to filter them based on a special system of priorities. Nancy had no idea what these priorities were, as the boxes were usually all empty. But on occasion she found one or more envelopes , whereupon she was to write down the box number, hail a cab, then take the letter directly to Mr. Wayne's home in the hills around the Bay.

The first occasion this happened, Nancy was only too excited. What would she say to Mr. Wayne? She knew he normally came to work late, so he must still be at home. Nancy was a little disappointed to be greeted at the door by an older British gentleman, but her feelings were eased when he graciously invited her in for tea and fruit, then paid her cab fare along with a healthy tip for her troubles.

This repeated every few months. She never saw Mr. Wayne, but at least she had breakfast with his butler to look forward to.

This morning was not much different. Nancy visited the post office and found four envelopes in her PO boxes. Traffic was better than usual, and it hardly took an hour to reach to the gates of stately Wayne Manor. The one difference she noticed was that kindly Mr. Pennyworth seemed troubled. Nancy had visited often enough to know the man's Victorian sense of propriety. His demeanor was so polished and reserved that it was practically its own British embassy. Seeing just a crease of his brow suggested more private distress than the sight of most men crying.

But Nancy didn't dare pry. She enjoyed her tea and ginger snaps then said her goodbyes. Mr. Pennyworth fidgeted as she ate, offering bland small talk without his usual charm and not touching a bite himself, and later she swore he seemed eager to usher her out the door. It was strange but no real concern to her, and as the cab pulled away, the thought quickly left her mind.

\---

Nancy's intuition had been correct. Alfred was nervous. Bruce hadn't returned last night. This alone wasn't uncommon enough to ruffle Alfred's feathers, but Bruce also hadn't called. No matter how busy the mission, if Bruce was going to be out after dawn, he made an effort to phone. The rational part of Alfred knew the silence wasn't necessarily proof of tragedy. There were plenty of sensible reasons for Bruce to not call. Alfred was pleased to find one of these sensible reasons was indeed reality, but it was the last reason he would have guessed: blind notes.

Bruce had explained the idea once, but Alfred had forgotten most of the details. Bruce wanted a special way to contact him in the field while protecting their identities, lest some observer make a connection between Batman and the Wayne household. Bruce planned to do this with 'blind notes', messages passed through as many hands as possible to foil tracking or interception.

Alfred understood that part of the blind note system was Bruce writing out all conceivable messages he might want to share then storing them indefinitely with a neutral party. Alfred thought this was absurd for several reasons, but he knew it was folly to question at the depths of Master Bruce's caution, and he figured the boy might as well get some use out of all those cryptography books he purchased for him over the years.

Once Miss Kingsolver was safely away, Alfred descended into the Cave and opened her four envelopes. Each contained a printed card with a random string of letters and numbers.

4ki2

Fvj9e

gswBei

77dke12

 

"How articulate."

Alfred reached the Cave's Records, a natural alcove holding twenty filing cabinets in the driest corner of their little camp. He searched the index for the blind note key and found it in a less-used cabinet near the back. Alfred recalled the young lady saying the envelopes arrived in the second, fourth, ninth, and twelfth PO boxes. This was a critical fact; Bruce had written the code to mean something different depending on which PO box it arrived in. With fourteen boxes, he only had to store a few dozen notes to hold the hundreds of messages he might want to communicate. How Master Bruce was able to recall these hundreds of messages and their respective codes was beyond Alfred's comprehension.

The instructions were simple-enough. Alfred brought the binder with the key to a nearby desk, lit the lamp, and slipped on his spectacles. With a scrap paper and a pen, he deciphered them in a minute. The deciphered notes read:

Livingstone

Exodus Psi

Sorcerer

Charon Protocol

 

Alfred recognized the first two terms.

"Livingstone" meant Bruce was relatively well, but he would be out of contact for at least another day. It wasn't good news, per se, but it was better than many alternatives.

"Exodus Psi" made Alfred's heart skip a beat. Exodus was their emergency plan to scuttle their entire hidden life, erase evidence of Batman, and escape to some far corner of the Earth. It happened in successive stages. Exodus Omega was the final instruction to actually pull the plug and leave. Exodus Psi was the penultimate instruction to prepare for Omega and wait (Bruce naturally used the end of the Greek alphabet instead of the more familiar early letters, a choice even a Cambridge man like Alfred found a touch affected).

Half of Exodus Psi was buying plane tickets to several destinations and packing. The other half was carrying a bag of blasting caps up a ladder and attaching them to a small bomb permanently affixed to the Cave wall. Bruce, with his endless resourcefulness, had decided that the easiest way to destroy all culpable evidence of Batman was to redirect a nearby underground stream to bury all their hard work in a pool of water and silt. To this end, Bruce discovered that a certain part of the cavern wall was separated from this stream by only four feet of rock. Bruce had permanently anchored a box of dynamite against that part of the wall so either of them could blast the rock with a few minutes of work. Bruce claimed the flood would take days to fill the chamber, but the water and rubble would be deep enough to deter most investigators within a few hours.

Although Exodus Psi implied a degree of urgency, Alfred decided he would check the other two messages first.

"Sorcerer" was as plain as it was haunting. Found in tiny script at the back of the one of the least-used booklets, its entry simply stated:

I have encountered unnatural phenomena. Disregard existing reality framework. Expect every danger. 

 

Alfred stared at the sentence for a long while. He wasn't sure how to react to it, but it made him shiver in his waistcoat. He couldn't fault Master Bruce for using a blind note if wizards might be spying on them. Alfred decided it was impossible to anticipate something as vague as 'literally anything', so he choose to ignore that message for the moment.

The entry for "Charon Protocol" was much longer, running several pages of instructions. Alfred read it though several times to ensure he understood the premise. It he was correct, it might have the most drastic consequences of the four.

Alfred returned the papers he didn't need to the Records and burned the notes in the furnace. He found some blasting caps in the Cave's explosives shed and carried them up to the bomb. Alfred was no expert on bombs, but Bruce had designed this model to be as simple as possible and had left a diagram for blasting cap installation which a child could follow. When he was finished, Alfred could flood the whole cavern with a two-switch detonator at the top of the staircase.

As he reached he base of the stairs, Alfred stopped with a sudden change of heart. He detoured to the disguise closet and picked up a concealed back holster. Then he entered the Cave's extensive workshop. In one corner of the workshop was a gunsmithing bench where Batman tested weapons or inspected them for evidence. Alfred opened a drawer and removed a 9 mm Browning Hi Power, a blocky, dull black pistol with a wood-finished grip. He loaded in a magazine, racked the slide, and fit the pistol into the back holster which he belted under his coattails. Expect every danger, indeed.

Returning to the manor, Alfred retired to his room and sat in front of the phone. He read the Charon Protocol again, trying to mold the details into a script. He hadn't played the part of Master Bruce in quite some time, but the role came easily enough. After he found his composure, Alred picked up the receiver and dialed.

A friendly man's voice answered. "Yello? Lucius Fox speaking."

Alfred lit up with a glib smile and fell into a tony American accent. "Lucius, it's Bruce."

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Wayne, what-"

"Lucius, Lucius, listen. I have to speak quickly. I'm going to give you some instructions, okay? They might surprise you, but I can't explain the reasons now."

There was a brief pause. "Alright, Mr. Wayne."

"Here's what I need. Schedule a meeting with the Director of Research, the Comptroller, and a recruiter who knows the academic scene. Do this quietly."

"Done."

"I want a report on every research proposal we have that might conceivably be weaponized.”

“Uh, weaponized?”

“Whatever we have on file. Demolition equipment, industrial solvents, rockets, coilguns, high-voltage capacitors. Really loud saxaphones. Use your imagination. If it breaks things, I want to know about it."

Another pause. "I can do that, Mr. Wayne, though I believe most of those papers are in, uh, locked storage."

Lucius was tactfully referring to Bruce's first act upon taking control of Wayne Enterprises several years ago. Two hours into his first day on the job, Bruce shut down the company's Armaments Division. All Wayne merchandise that launched a bomb or bullet was immediately discontinued. Dozens of patents were tucked away. Two factories closed and eighty employees were moved or pensioned. Bruce didn't even allow the sale of existing inventory; everything was recalled and destroyed.

The decision – though a drop in a bucket to the company's bottom line - had been controversial to say the least. If nothing else, it cemented Bruce Wayne's reputation as a strict pacifist. The last thing anyone expected of him was to authorize a weapons program.

"I understand the challenges, Lucius. Do it. Then have the Director of Research solicit new proposals from his staff, no matter how unorthodox. Set a reward for promising ideas. I'll be the judge of what that means later."

"Sure. Understood."

"Good. Next, figure out the quickest way to get us a basic research lab: whether we buy one, sponsor one, build our own, I don't care"

"Excuse me, Mr. Wayne, we already run several distinguished laboratories."

"Those are for applied research, Lucius. Applied research is essentially a fancy term for new product development.”

“...Is that a problem?”

“Basic research is the pure pursuit of new knowledge. That's what I want. Get me a lab that does basic research in the material sciences. Something that can win us a few Nobels. Figure out a plan and quote a price. Have the recruiter draw up a list of the top researchers in each field , public or private, active or retired, who might work with us."

"This is no small project."

"Which brings me to my last point. Have the Comptroller look at our books and tell me how far we can dip into our savings without publicly rocking the company. We can't be taking loans for this, understand? No publicity. If we need extra funds to get started, find me projects we can afford to sell, then find me some buyers."

"Sell? I don't expect that's necessary, but, uh, what would our time horizon be for that?"

"Immediately. Liquidation rates."

Lucius said nothing for six seconds. "Mr. Wayne, that sounds like an awfully big sacrifice."

"That's because it is. Pretend the world is ending next month. Get on it."

Another pause. "You got it, Mr. Wayne."

"Oh, and Lucius?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. This is going to mean a lot of long nights for both of us. Give yourself a raise. Something generous. Take it out of my salary."

"Uh, are you sure ab-"

"I have to go, take care of yourself. Bye."

 

\---

Batman awoke contemplating the Woman.

His first conscious thought was the memory of her deflecting his salvo of batarangs with those long metal cuffs on her arms. While intercepting, she had moved with a speed that, in hindsight, was clearly unnatural. With such reflexes, she could probably catch an arrow. But if her arms could move so fast, why didn't she strike that way? She was a quick boxer, astonishingly quick, but still human. Compared to how she intercepted projectiles, she brawled like she was stuck in molasses. He shouldn't have been able to land a punch. Why the difference? That made no sense at all.

Then he recalled the words she cried when he burned her neck. His thoughts were foggy now, possibly concussed, and he couldn't remember all the details of last night. Fortunately, her voice was burned into his memory. He would still write it down when he had the chance. The words weren't familiar but he could spell them phonetically. He resolved to find recordings of native speakers in similar-sounding languages. Maybe he would get lucky and recognize a match. He knew a few academic libraries that had such recordings. If that failed to uncover her secrets, he would ask a linguist. He tried to avoid sharing cases beyond his regular collaborators, but he deemed this instance relatively safe. Batman doubted her words were incriminating or personal. They were likely some variation on “Ouch” or “Stop” or, more likely yet, profanities.

He was about to entertain a third thought, wondering where she had acquired an authentic bronze breastplate in her exact size, but he was interrupted by a wave of extraordinary pain.

Every inch of him was sore, and he felt a stiffness in his joints bordering on paralysis. He doubted he could outrun a toddler today. Worst was his neck. It had been injured somehow, and he couldn't turn it at all. He still wished to pry off the rest of the armor, but at least the gorget served as a sort of neck brace – a stiff, metal, ill-shaped neck brace, but better than nothing.

He felt the terrible burns on his right hand itch. The first delicate strands of new skin were just starting to form under its gauze wrap. He knew it would sting it he flexed his hand at all, and he knew the itching would only get worse.

He felt the crude splint around his middle finger. It was just badly sprained; she hadn't crushed the bone, a fact he now regarded as a minor miracle. Still, he had little faith in the skill of his field medicine given his condition last night, and if the splint was crooked, he would need to reset it later. Doing so would peel off the new skin, ruining a day's worth of healing.

The two gaps in his teeth should have been nicely infected by now, but he supposed his livestock-sized dose of antibiotics staved that off. That was still a stupid risk in hindsight. The penicillin had conducted a scotched earth campaign through in his intestines. If he had eaten more than soup in the last ten hours, he would have vomited it all in his sleep.

The swelling in Batman's bruise face had reduced a fair bit, but he would have to do something about the sight. He was still counting his other bruises when he smelled something appetizing and heard a squeaking in the distance. Confused, he opened his eyes and struggled to roll onto his side. He knew it was well past dawn, but his little camp in the tunnel was in perpetual darkness. With one good hand, he managed to light his lamp in short order. By then the squeaking had stopped and the appetizing, bready scent seemed close enough to taste.

The lamp flickered to life, and Batman saw a silver platter holding a plate of French toast, a glass of orange juice, and a note. The platter shifted. Batman peeked under it and saw it was being carried by six rats. The juice was starting to slosh, so Batman took the platter and placed it on the ground. The rats ran off into the darkness.

Batman looked around (a slow process that required him to turn his whole upper body). There was no one in sight, rodent or otherwise. He read the note. It was written in pencil on the back of a gas station receipt. The handwriting was atrocious.

Hey buddy Thansks again for th advice last night.

Its going too be a hole new ball game now! Consider food a tokeen of my admiration.

Come backe any ime!!

Batman dropped the note and stared ahead in grave concern. He hazily remembered speaking with the Ratcatcher for thirty minutes or so before they parted ways, but he couldn't recall for the life of him what advice he had offered. The possibilities were troubling.

He put that concern out of his mind and focused on the platter. There was no way he could swallow toast. He could probably drink the orange juice, but the acid would cause some sublime discomfort for the next few hours. He left the platter and enjoyed a swig of water from his camp kit instead. Then he remembered the note.

Consider food a tokeen of my admiration.

Batman frowned. “Hmm.”

He crouched and poured the orange juice down a small drain. No point in being rude. He was about to stuff the French toast down the same hole, but then he recalled that the Ratcatcher could evidently talk to rats. He remembered what rats were like. After a moment's hesitation, Batman solemnly balled up a slice of toast and fit it into a belt pouch, cramming it tight with his thumb before closing the flap.

\---

The Marston-Peter Municipal Airport was little more than a grassy field and a few overgrown shacks six miles west of Gotham City limits. The site was popular with private pilots who flew for recreation, given a loose definition of 'popular' anyway. At its busiest, Marston-Peter might handle two flights a day. Unsurprisingly, there was only one car in the dirt parking lot when Batman arrived astride a motorcycle when the sun was low in the sky. He knew who owned the car, a semi-retired flight controller and part-owner of the airport named Jeb Dunn. He was almost certainly sleeping in the tower. A marching band passing under his window wouldn't wake him at this hour.

The regular customers who rented space in the hanger had a dingy locker room in the terminal. Batman went to a certain locker. It had the name Malone stenciled on it. It was also locked, but the metal was old and a strong tug yanked it open. Inside, he found several gym bags filled with assorted sets of clothes, cosmetics, and other props.

After a brief shower, “Matches” Malone woke his good pal Jeb Dunn. The old man helped Malone taxi his yellow Piper J-3 Cub onto the runway for a scenic run down the coast.

\---

Maria Bertinelli leaned on the sea-worn handrail of the boardwalk and watched her three children chase each other across the beach. Children were tough. Mothers didn't like to admit that, but they saw it best of all, and thank God for it. Maria had taken her children in the middle of the night on a seven-hour car trip, booking the last dirty vacancy of an old hotel when they arrived at this mid-Atlantic no-name town. Her kids had been scared, but she didn't know what danger to comfort them against. They missed their father, but she wasn't sure he was ever coming. She couldn't even promise he was alive. Maria had faced that doubt, that specter of widow-hood countless times back in the vendettas. She knew the man she married. She had made her choice. But her bambinos didn't get to choose their father, and they were too young to remember the old days. This was all new to them.

Maria and Arturo had started a family late, even by American standards. Most of her sisters and friends had adult children by now, but her oldest was twelve. That had been Arturo's decision. Maria had begged him for years, even brought a priest to plead on her behalf, but Arturo had resolutely refused to bring a child into his bloody world. It wasn't until the final months of the vendettas that he gave in to her wish. By then she was worried it was too late for her, but her prayers were answered three times over.

Maria Bertinelli scratched her wrist. Her skin and gums felt dry. Arturo didn't like it when she smoked. He said it wasn't proper, and she tried to obey him. The children usually kept her busy enough to ignore the little itch. Maria bit her lip and patted her purse. About once a month, she sneaked into a corner shop and bought a pack of smokes. She would carry them around for a day or two, feeling all the furtive thrill of a dance hall floozy and a sinner. Then she threw them out, defeating temptation for another month.

Maria swallowed. Heaven help her, she had bought a pack yesterday.

Her children still chased each other along the surf, and there was no one else on the beach. Maria glanced around then discreetly dug a cigarette and a match out of her purse. Head bent, she bit the cigarette and tried to strike the match on the wooden rail. No luck. The sea breeze and the cloudy sky kept the rail as moist as driftwood. She frowned, shifting the cigarette to the corner of her mouth with more skill than she liked to admit. She struck the match again and again until the head broke off. Maria tossed the stick and cradled her face in her hands in frustration.

"Need a light?"

Maria lifted her head and turned. A distinguished old man hobbled towards her on a cane, flipping open a lighter. He was only four steps away, but she hadn't heard him approach.

"Uh, yes, please."

She leaned towards his hand, lips around the cigarette, and he smoothly lit the tip. She closed her eyes and took a long drag.

"Ahhhh. Thank you, signor."

"Non è niente, madonna."

She blinked at him, lines of smoke still trailing from her nose. "You're Italian?"

He smiled with his eyes. "È il Papa?"

She laughed in spite of herself, holding the cigarette languidly at her side. It was the first thing she had done languidly in a long time. The man slipped the lighter into a trouser pocket and stood beside her to watch the waves. Even stooped with age, he seemed tall and broad, though it was unclear how much of this was an effect of his big coat. He wore an old-fashioned hat any padrino might wear back in Sicily, and had a thick white beard. When he rested his hands on the rail, she could see his gloves were a fine leather. Maria knew the kind of bags under his eyes came only with age or a punishing bout of insomnia, and he seemed rested. Like most older men, he also smelled funny.

He gestured towards the beach where her children played. "Sono questi i vostri bambini?"

His accent was unfamiliar. It was heavy on the consonants and lacked the musical quality of conversational Italian. He certainly wasn't from southern Italia like most immigrants. Maybe that was how they spoke in the northern cities. Folks up there were practically German.

Maria nodded. "Sì, sono miei." She looked across at the stranger and tried to recognize him. "Ci conosciamo , signore?"

The man shook his head. "No." He clasped his hands meekly on his cane and didn't meet her eye. "No, we haven't. But I'm afraid our meeting isn't chance. I know your family well, Mrs. Bertinelli."

Maria froze. She rubbed out her cigarette out on the rail and dropped it in the sand. "Who are you?"

"A negotiator."

Her voice ran deathly cold. "For. Who?"

The stranger said nothing for a moment. He watched her children skip across the sand, an attention that now filled her with dread. "I regret sharing bad news, but your husband has been taken by men who wish to hurt him, Mrs. Bertinelli. I am here to stop them."

Maria's expression didn't change, but the lines on her face and neck deepened, and her pupils focused to hateful dots. The man didn't notice or didn't care. He briefly described how Arturo looked last night: the pajamas, the ceiling dust, the revolver he carried, the color of his socks. There was no question he had seen Arturo up close or spoke with someone who had.

"What do these men want with him?"

"Two months ago, your husband abducted a group Ukrainian immigrants to use as forced labor." He saw the smallest glimmer of recognition in her eyes. "The men holding your husband are … sympathetic to the plight of these immigrants. They feel a Slavic kinship. They are, in a sense, family." He knew this was laying it on thick, but subtlety was overrated. "These men only want to know where their family has been taken."

"And Arturo will not help them." It wasn't a question.

"He's quiet on the subject. But I'm afraid his captors' desire for an answer is becoming more and more … urgent."

"No. No."

"I represent certain authorities who have dealt with your husband in the past. We would like to see his safe return, but we need your help."

"Me?"

"It wasn't easy to find you, but you seem a wise woman, madonna. I suspect you have the answer that could free Mr. Bertinelli."

"The answer he would rather die than let the bastardi know."

The old man held out his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I won't insult your loyalty. As I said, I'm a negotiator. To cool their tempers, I discreetly suggested I had another source for what these men want, and they've delayed their interrogation. Your husband may have-" The man looked at a pocket watch. "Two hours to live. Maybe three. I'm not sure how much blood a man needs."

Maria bent over the rail and let out a rasping sob. She gradually regained her composure, but she didn't look at him again. Her voice was low and drowned in malice.

"And who says you are not with them, ah? Who says if I have your answer, I get Arturo back at all?"

"I suppose I can't prove that. But trust me, if I was one of your husband's captors, we wouldn't be talking here. You would be waking up in an abandoned house, and I would have a gun to Anita's head." He looked forlornly at her children on the beach. "Or Paulie. Or Lucia. That's who we're dealing with."

Maria's eyes were wet. He could see the tendons in her small fists, and he knew that if she had any weapon at all, even a splinter of wood, she would have stabbed him already.

"Or perhaps it would satisfy you to know that I've dined recently with Mr. Sal Maroni. We ate on green-patterned china. Agostina Maroni makes a lovely pasta with sea urchins, and she had this almond candy shaped like peaches and oranges, frutta martorana, I believe. Personally, I think these were too bitter, but she seemed so proud of them that we all ate at least four. Afterward, his granddaughter entertained us with her violin."

This stopped Maria in her tracks. The Four Families rarely ate together, especially lesser branches like Arturo's, but she once enjoyed dinner at Salvatore Maroni's house. The stranger's description was exactly as she remembered. It was a sign of supreme trust and affection to invite an outsider to dinner in your home, and Maria couldn't imagine any way a person could discover such private details of a mob boss' domestic life otherwise. This old stranger was, in the strongest possible sense, 'connected'.

"You have great kids, Mrs. Bertinelli. It is a miserable thing to lose a father. Believe me."

He slowly turned and hobbled away. Maria Bertinelli watched him leave down boardwalk. He seemed to blur, and she realized her eyes were wet.

She called out. "There's a bar on 85nd Street, Carlo's." The man stopped and looked back. She had to yell to reach him over the gulls and the breeze. "Behind the furnace in the basement is a hidden panel. He doesn't think anyone knows about it, but I-" She paused. "If he has something to keep from the world, he'd put it there."

The man considered this, then took off his hat and offered a gracious bow. Maria watched him climb the grassy hill over the boardwalk and out to the parking lot.

\---

It was a bad stereotype that the wife always knows. Some men were truly as tight-lipped as they pretended, and some women were simply unobservant. Nevertheless, Batman found that in nine cases out of ten - whether a debt, a racket, an affair, a grudge, or a body – the wife knows. Batman didn't take advantage of this fact very often, but when an investigation went south, it was a priceless trump card.

\---

Tommy "the Snake" Santini was a young soldier in the Bertinelli crime family. Like most of the organization, he wasn't actually family. Not even in that casually adopted sense the really old guys who knew Frankie from the beginning enjoyed. Like many kids who came of age after the Peace, Tommy never had the opportunity to make his bones the proper way. He was forced to forge a name for himself through the relatively sedate jobs available, usually messenger, doorman, or delivery boy plus the occasional scare-job. In the old days, the kids who hung around the bottom of the totem pole wouldn't have earned even a steady paycheck from this kind of work. Now, it was all there was to offer. After just a few years of hustling, such work was enough to earn Tommy a place in the Family proper. The lowest rung of the Family, true, but a position on the inside all the same. That was how bloodless the game had become. Now the problem was moving up. No one died or went to prison anymore, so he couldn't promote into a vacancy, and there was no war to win honors or new rackets left to prove his entrepreneurial savvy. No, Tommy was forced to run errands. Even so, he always gave it his all, trusting that one day his opportunity would come knocking.

Today his errand was picking up Mrs. Bertinelli and her kids at some hotel a ways south, and to do it quick. The circumstances were odd, but he didn't consider asking questions. Tommy received the call just before breakfast, which he skipped, and in no time he was racing down the interstate in a borrowed truck (his coupe didn't have enough seats). It was well past noon when arrived. When he parked, he noticed one of Mr. Arturo's cars nearby. Tommy walked briskly into the hotel, passing an old bearded man in a big coat using the payphone outside.

Tommy had been told that Mrs. Bertinelli was hiding under an unknown name, so he made up a simple lie for the receptionist about being an undercover cop investigating a report of a lady stealing hotel furniture. The reecptionst was more than happy to tell him that 'Mrs. Parker', who matched the description, had left in the direction of the boardwalk hours ago with three children.

Tommy jogged to the boardwalk and found Mrs. Bertinelli leaning on the railing and looking out to sea. "'Scuse me, Mrs. Bertinelli."

She spun in surprise. He held up his hands. "Mrs. Bertinelli, forgive me. It's me, Thomas Santini. I'm sorry. Good to see you. Didn't mean to scare you." He noticed she had been crying. "Whoa, what's wrong? What's the matter, Mrs. Bertinelli? Is something wrong here?"

She swallowed and asked him in a rough voice, "Why are you here?"

"Hey there, hey, your husband sent me, Mrs. Bertinelli. Mr. Arturo says you can come home. He wants to let you know he's alright now. Everything's good. He says leave your car here. I'm driving you and the kids home. You can relax, maybe take a nap or something. Whatever you want, okay?"

Maria Bertinelli looked like she hardly heard him. She was staring into space, and her stare grew heavier and darker. Her mouth was a tight line.

"Mrs. Bertinelli?"

Finally, she snapped out of it and addressed him with a cold clarity that belied the dry tears on her face. "Go back to the hotel, Tommy. Call Arturo. Tell him I told a man about Carlo's."

"What? What man?"

She shushed him and slapped his cheek lightly. "Carlo's. Run."

"I-"

Mrs. Bertielli huffed in disgust and rushed past him up the hill. She couldn't run with much speed, but not for lack of trying. Tommy caught up with her. "I'm sorry, madonna, you can't call Mr. Arturo."

She didn't stop but sharply asked, "Why?"

"I don't know, I don't know. But something's happening. They're hiding him. I'm only here because he passed the word along to Don Bertinelli who told me to come."

"Then call the Don! Now! Andava!" She slapped him again. "Tell him to ask Arturo about Carlo's Bar. It's an emergency."

Tommy ran ahead. Fortunately, the old man at the phone was gone. Tommy pulled a nickel from his pocket and dialed the trunk call.

\---

85th Street had been well outside contested territory during the Vendettas, so its residents had largely been spectators to the city-wide battlefield. Still, they used to say a family had to pass Idaho to avoid the Vendettas altogether, and 85th Street eventually experienced a few drive-bys, an alleged poisoning, and a smattering of police raids. Nothing impressive, but enough to stick in the local memory. So, folks were edgy for a time, but the Peace of Falcone proved remarkably stable, and the thought that anything could upset the neighborhood a decade later seemed absurd.

So 85th Street reacted with disbelief when a wedge of three GCPD cruisers with their lights flashing sped through several stop signs and squealed to a stop in front of old Carlo's Bar on the corner. Two cops popped out of each car and rushed to the entrance. One pair went around the back while the other four flanked the door. It was closed, but they could hear voices and movement inside. Like many bars, they were sure it served as a private clubhouse for the owners and their friends in the off-hours. It was impossible to tell if the occupants heard them arrive or how many were inside. Today it didn't matter.

Detective Harvey Bullock rapped on the door, keeping his body well to the side of it. He sang out, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."

The noise inside stopped. A man called back, "You better make tracks, buddy. We're closed."

Harvey nodded to his team. "Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll-"

A bullet shot through the door, missing his head by a foot. He heard it ricochet off his car. Harvey flinched and kicked open the door with his size 15 shoe. "Police! Drop the heaters, all's a' ya!"

He peaked inside, then waved the other officers in. His team entered with their weapons drawn. There were five people in the dim bar, two men and three women. One of the men was busy putting a cheap pistol on the ground. Harvey stomped up to him and shoved the punk against a table. "You think that was wise? Huh, buddy? Taking potshots at a cop? That funny?"

The man tried to keep his balance. "Hey now. You didn't say you were cops."

"Must'a slipped my mind." Harvey comically twirled a finger around his ear and rolled his eyes. "Oops."

One of his officers pocketed the weapon. Harvey pushed the lowlife aside and took in the scenery. The place was a real dive, and Harvey Bullock was a man who knew his dives. A woman, some blond dame that might have been pretty ten years ago asked him, "What's youse officers want? We done nothing wrong, honest!"

Harvey turned her way. "Is that right, honey? You done nothing wrong?" He pointed at her. "Save it for your pastor. We're looking for one thing, and it ain't to break up whatever game of patty-cake we stepped in on. So shut those lips and keep your head down."

Another woman, a perky lil' thing with glasses asked him, “Well, what's the one thing you want?”

She sounded earnest. Harvey had a soft spot for glasses. "I understand this place has a basement. I want to see it."

"Oh." The men and woman eyed each other in sincere puzzlement. The girl shrugged. "Sure. There's nothing down there though."

"I'll be the judge of that, toots. Let's get going."

"It's back here."

Harvey was about to follow her into a narrow hallway when he heard engines sputter outside. Harvey turned to another cop. "Gilford, keep an eye on this crew." The officer nodded and guided the bar's occupants into the back room. Harvey and his two other teammates went to the door and peered out.

A pair of shiny Cadillacs were parking outside Carlo's Bar, barely fitting around the trio of cop cars – the mass of vehicles easily blocked both lanes. The Cadillacs' doors opened and five men calmly stepped out. All tough customers, all in three-piece suits. Harvey gaped open-mouthed for a moment and gestured for his two teammates to hold position. He holstered his sidearm and walked outside.

"Marco Bertinelli."

The man in the middle of the new arrivals, a strong, fat guy looked back at Harvey with level contempt. Except for Marco's darker features and nicer suit, he and Harvey could have been twins.

Marco spoke plainly. "Bullock, this is Family business." He unbuttoned his suit and brushed it open, revealing a Hargrave .31 at his side. "Get going."

The sight of the Hargrave sent a bead of cold sweat down Harvey's back, but he held his ground. "No dice, Marco, this is Gotham business. I'm gonna have to ask you and your boys to drive away."

Marco shook his head. "Can't do that. If you defy me here, some important people are going to be disappointed with you."

"And normally I'd be shaking in my boots, honest. But yesterday I found something new."

"What?"

"A spine. You should try it sometime."

"One last warning, Bullock." His four colleagues slid open their jackets and palmed their own Hargraves.

Harvey's face went white. "Whoa! Whoa. Let's talk about this. No need to rush."

"I know you got another cop in there, Bullock. Bring 'em out. Can't let you paw around in there."

"Oh, he's not doing anything. Just getting a drink."

"Four seconds."

"Hey, now! You need us. You hurt me, the Families lose the GCPD."

"I don't think so, Bullock, you washed-up drunken slug. If I hurt you, all the world loses is you. Can't say that feels like a sacrifice."

The five Bertinelli men drew their weapons.


	10. Kiss the Sky

Albert Einstein's theories of relativity introduced the idea that the flow of time wasn't constant but depended on the frame of reference of each observer. In 1919, a solar eclipse showed that gravity bent light the way his general theory predicted, making him an overnight celebrity. Of course, this new physics craze didn't make physics any simpler, and plenty of journalists and academics made a living trying in vain to explain his papers to the public. For years afterward, it was common wisdom that only a handful of geniuses truly understood relativity.

Detective Harvey Bullock had failed introductory algebra. Yet the idea that time could change depending on the observer seemed obvious. Bullock was no genius, but he was observing five killers drawing gats on him, and he swore he could finish War and Peace between each heartbeat.

KA-TUMP

His pulse was as loud as a screen door in a hurricane.

KA-TUMP

Harvey began to step back. His fingers patted around his hip, desperate to catch the top of his holster.

KA-TUMP

The Bertinelli hit squad had already slapped leather. One on the left, the quickest of the lot, had his piece up and was drawing a bead on him. The goon was fast, but from practice, not rushing. Family soldiers knew how to aim. They were fifteen paces apart. He wouldn't miss.

KA-

"HEY! HEY! DROP IT!"

Bullock's heart skipped a beat. Cop and crook alike turned to the voice.

\---

Four hours earlier.

Walter Brown was a humble man. He was a manager of middling rank at a paper company where he had worked for thirty years. Lately, he had declined several promotions so he could spend time with his wife and grandchildren. He had few friends, wasn't a member of any team or club, and rarely left the house after dinner. Indeed, there was nothing remarkable about Walter Brown except that he happened to be the Deputy Mayor's brother-in-law and the County Commissioner's second cousin. Fate had given him a better view of the halls of power than any journalist or bureaucrat could ever hope to glimpse.

Walter never cared for politics, but he wasn't naive. He knew that when certain relatives asked him for a favor, it was considerably more serious than borrowing a grill. There was a world of difference between what a politician had to do and what a politician could be seen doing. Public leaders needed work-arounds. But who could do the job?A politician's staff could go where he couldn't, but having an assistant caught crossing a line was only slightly better for a boss' reputation than finding his own name in the headlines. A politician's immediate family faced the same scrutiny, especially since the siblings, wives, and children of those in power tended to have a history in the public eye of their own. But then there were those distant relations with no presence on the social circuit. The Walters of the world were the invisible option. He was too boring to need an alibi.

So when a conclave of Gotham City's highest elected officials needed a messenger to pitch their grievances at a meeting of its most notorious gang lords, Walter was the man they sent. He received a phone call from his brother-in-law last night, warning that his services might be needed. This morning, a stranger from City Hall visited his home, briefed him for ten minutes, and called him a taxi. The taxi left him in a parking garage somewhere in the East End – the hand-off point was different each time – and a shiny blue Lincoln picked him up. Two polite but serious men frisked him, then he was taken downtown to a dark gray skyscraper. The sign over the entrance had the name of an insurance company he had never heard of. But the two men escorted him around the building to a secluded back door protected by a security guard. The guard unlocked the door, and Walter was guided down two grimey maintenance hallways to an old elevator. There was no operator. One of the escorts produced a key. Holding down an unlabeled button, he turned the key in a hidden hole. An unseen bell rung twice.

The elevator car ascended for quite some time. When the doors opened, Walter stepped into a quiet lobby. Sixteen well-dressed men waited here in the rows of plush chairs, reading or playing cards, and the whole group glanced at him as he entered.

The scene was so mundane, it took a moment for Walter to realize that they all had submachine guns.

\---

The present.

When Harvey Bullock's team stormed Carlo's Bar, a pair of officers had hooked around through the alley. Hundreds of exciting chases were aborted every year when fugitives dashed out their back door only to be tackled by a flanking element, and if the front entry went hot, a strike from the rear could save lives. In this case, Officers Wilkes and Montoya had hardly turned the corner when they heard one of the bar's occupants fire a shot. They burst in, but Detective Bullock had already secured the scene. Seeing the situation under control, they returned to the alley to establish a perimeter while Bullock grilled the locals.

Not a minute later, Wilkes and Montoya heard cars pull up in front. Montoya asked if they were expecting more units. Wilkes shrugged. Then they heard Bullock's unmistakable bark:

"Marco Bertinelli."

The pair froze. Officer Wilkes whispered in horror, "Ah, poop."

Officer Montoya, no less distressed, put a shaky finger to her lips and nodded to move to the corner. She peaked around and whipped her head back. Wilkes looked at her. She wordlessly held up five fingers. He nodded, swallowed, and readied his weapon. She did the same. They listened to the pack of Bertinellis trading barbs with Bullock. Then it went south. Montoya looked and saw the gangsters go for their guns. She leaned out of the alley and yelled, "HEY! HEY! DROP IT!"

Bullock turned and saw the pair he sent around the corner jump out and get the drop on the Bertinellis. Beautiful timing. With the gunmen distracted, he stumbled backward and half-ran, half-crawled trough the door into the bar. The two officers bunkered inside the door glared at him in exasperation. He realized that while standing outside, he had been blocking their line of fire. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He rolled out of the doorway and finally found his weapon.

Officer Gilford hustled out of the back room, but Bullock snarled and waved him away. Someone had to keep an eye on the locals. Who knew what they were up to? He patted Officer Smith on the shoulder, and the kid peeled away from the door to take a position by a quarter-open glazed window, holding his service revolver in one hand and the cheap popgun he took from the barfly in the other. Bullock stepped into his place and looked outside.

\---

Three hours earlier.

Walter Brown was politely frisked again, then he was led down yet another hallway. He made small talk with a new escort he recognized. A short distance down the hall was an undistinguished door protected by big guards, all standing at attention, all armed. One nodded vaguely in his direction. Another knocked twice then opened the door.

It was a surprisingly humble meeting room, given that the four gentlemen inside all owned residences as nice as the governor's mansion. He could imagine it holding budget discussions or job interviews like any mid-rent office in the city. The table was unvarnished, the wallpaper was cracked, layers of tobacco soot smudged the furniture, and the red blinds were faded nearly white. His escort pulled out his seat and offered refreshments, which he declined.

Unlike the room, the four men at the table looked like a million bucks. Walter wouldn't have been surprised if gangsters kept half the haberdashers in the city afloat; they always wore the finest suits and every accessory. Walter had met them all many times and never saw one thread out of place. Even relaxed, the bosses made a powerful image, and today they were not relaxed.

Franco "Frank" Bertinelli was uncharacteristically sullen but as intense as always. He was a small man and a bit pudgy, but he moved with an energy that made him almost seem average-sized. Not coincidentally, Walter doubted anyone had called Frank short since he was fourteen, or at least no one had lived to tell about it.

Salvatore "Sal" Maroni was much bigger, with a fleshy face and a truly impressive gut. Whereas Frank seemed grim, Sal had the same smirk as usual. It made him look a little foolish. Walter wasn't sure the deception was intentional, but he doubted anyone underestimated him these days. And smirk or not, today he seemed on edge.

Giovanni "Icepick Johnny" Nobilo was as silent and inscrutable as the rest of the Nobilo clan. Walter couldn't recall ever hearing more than five words out of those thin lips, and rarely more than one. Giovanni was blessed with features so average and forgettable that he could hide in a crowd of two. After all these years, he was still a mystery.

And finally there was the man himself, Carmine "the Roman" Falcone. Tall, svelte, refined. Walter had never seen him act any way but the perfect gentleman. And coming from a family of politicians, Walter could spot a fake. Yet for nearly fifeteen years, this gentleman had been mythologized as a sultan among thugs, a grandmaster of blood and deceit, the one who could touch the untouchable. Those guards outside were frightening, but Falcone was something more sublime. He was humbling. And today he was not pleased.

Of course, he was gracious about it.

"Mr. Brown, greetings. To what do we owe the honor?" Falcone smiled, gesturing to his guest.

Walter nodded in return. "You're too kind Mr. Falcone, I'm sure the honor is mine. Mr. Nobilo, Mr. Maroni, Mr. Bertinelli, thank you all for having me."

The other three bosses nodded their cautious welcome. Only half of their quartet had been born in America, all grew up dirt poor, and none had finished school. Yet Walter, who discreetly represented some of the most powerful and privileged men in the country, was essentially an ambassador in their underworld court; he would kneel and kiss their rings if they so beckoned him.

"What can we do for you, Mr. Brown?"

\---

The present.

When two cops jump out of an alley and train guns on a gang of normal criminals, most often the criminals run, fire back, or stick up their hands. So when the five gunmen merely scrambled for cover, it was either sheer brass or a gut-deep trust that their name made them invincible. Bullock suspected both, but mostly the later. No cop had shot at a made Family man in something like eight years, and this wasn't the closest an encounter had come. Close, but not quite.

And they were right. Montoya and Wilkes hadn't pulled the trigger. Even when the Bertinelli soldiers ignored a direct order, even though they were about to shoot a brother cop, his two officers didn't pull the trigger. And Bullock's kids weren't even dirty. The GCPD just put the rule in your bones. His men wouldn't shoot the Families.

Not first, anyway.

The five gunmen were now ducking behind their two Cadilllacs and a cement tree planter. Marco, just as big as Bullock, was barely nimble enough to slide over the hood of a car, and he huffed as he looked back-and-forth for any other surprises.

Bullock called out, "What are we even doing here? I don't know what this is to you, Marco, but it ain't worth it."

Marco ejected the magazine on his Hargrave, re-counted the rounds, and snapped it back into place. He called back, "I wouldn't be here if it weren't worth it, and you better believe that, Harvey. I swear on my sweet mama's grave, we will go through you to get in that bar."

"Wait, your mom's alive, though."

"You know what I mean."

"Let's calm down and we can all go home with the right number of holes in our face. We both want something here, maybe we can work something out."

"I'm done talking. You need to walk, chubby."

"Oh, that's rich."

Bullock's mind raced for a response to keep the conversation going. The five police and five gangsters kept their standoff cool by a hairsbreadth, shuffling around their covers and sweeping their guns from target to target. His squad wouldn't panic easy, but they weren't angels. And the bosses would only hand out five Hargraves to a team that bled ice, but everyone made mistakes. Bullock felt like he was holding back a flood with his thumb. He wasn't hot on the idea of reenacting the O.K. Corral. Then he had a great idea.

"Marco, just-"

Two streets over, an idling truck's old exhaust backfired. BANG!

\---

Three hours earlier.

Walter folded his hands on the table. "Gentlemen, last night, a warrant was filed for the arrest of Arturo Bertinelli." He faced them in turn, but only glanced briefly at Frank Bertinelli, whose stare was dark and level. "Despite the city's efforts, he remains at large, and authorities are concerned that he is being sheltered by parties close to him."Walter hesitated here, but when he eventually spoke, his voice was firm. "Should Arturo continue to remain at large, the police will begin investigating his friends and family. Anyone found providing him shelter will be tried for harboring a fugitive and as an accessory to his crimes after the fact. And considering Arturo's particular crimes, that would be a grave fate indeed." Walter gave them a moment to consider his announcement, then he continued, "However, if Arturo is found before the end of the day, then it will be obvious he was acting alone and that line of inquiry will not be pursued."

There was silence at the table. They had known each other a long time. Walter could see conversations in their eyes, considering questions and knowing how their peers would answer. There was no bravado here, just calculating. Endless calculating.

He knew the Families observed a code of etiquette when meeting outsiders, and speaking order was paramount. Whichever boss answered first would have an advantage in setting the tone of the group; the others couldn't disagree afterward without looking divided. Of course, it would be offensive to take that advantage without a good reason. The first speaker had to know that he shared the group's consensus. And if there was doubt, then at least he needed some special authority on the issue. And if that was unclear, then at least he had to know the benefits of candor outweighed the risks, and that was rarely certain.

None of these judgments could be debated out loud, as disunity was weakness. Walter wondered why the bosses didn't simply send guests out of the room at the beginning and discuss every new issue first in private. He supposed they took too much pride in the impression of spontaneous unity.

As it was, he watched the silent politics play out across the table. The announcement wasn't a surprise, so there was no leader in knowledge. Bertinelli was the obvious interested party, but he had a reputation as a hothead and the others might see him as responsible for their predicament. Falcone usually led the meetings. Still, though famously impartial, he was known to favor cooperation with law enforcement, yet he kept a protective attitude towards the Bertinelli Family. Today such opposing interests made him a wild card. Of the other two, Maroni had a diplomatic temperment but also a reputation for brash self-interest, and he nursed an old feud with Frank Bertinelli that bubbled up inconveniently every few years. As for Don Nobilo, he had probably never spoken first in any meeting in his life.

Predictably, Falcone broke the deadlock. "We've heard Arturo is a wanted man. Naturally, we wish the best for our esteemed colleague, but it pains me that you would suggest we may be involved in aiding him."

Walter nodded slowly. "Then I beg your forgiveness, Mr. Falcone. Please understand that even highly-regarded citizens such as yourselves are questioned during police investigations from time to time. I've been promised such an ordeal would be conducted with all the discretion and speed your reputations merit. And, I feel obliged to reiterate, the unpleasantness could be avoided entirely should Arturo fall into police custody." Walter leaned forward and added a low tone to his voice. "That outcome would be most convenient for all involved, I'm sure."

The bosses eyed each other. Sal Maroni cut in, still wearing a friendly smirk that would impress a shark, "Hey, listen now. This Arturo is a slippery guy, see? What say he don't show up today? Surely the fine public servants of Gotham City aren't going to hold that against us. After all, we've been nothing but civic-minded and generous for many, many years."

"Be that as it may, Mr. Maroni-"

"Now, 'scuse me, 'scuse me, I respect you, but I want to say first that we have been enormously supportive of the election efforts of just about all elected posts in the city. That was 'cause we believe in this administration. Not once, not even once have we requested anything at all for our support."

As far as Walter knew, that was technically true. The Families had a talent for insinuating what they wanted without actually speaking a request.

"Sir, trust me, the administration values that immensely. But here is the harsh truth, gentlemen. If you weren't already aware, Arturo is wanted for abducting a boatload of Ukrainian travelers. Someone, and we're not sure who, leaked this information to the press before the ink on his arrest warrant was dry. It will make the evening edition of every paper in the city. That's front page material, in all likelihood.

"Now, most of Gotham's local Ukrainians are immigrants. Very tight-knit, you see. And unlike other disreputable races, they can be quite organized, and they they have considerable support with other Slavs – Russians, Poles, and Slovaks. Together, that's six percent of the city, almost all living in the same spot. These neighborhoods tend to be, well, restive I suppose is the word. Quite a chip on their shoulder. Quick to strike and protest, you see."

Falcone brushed his chin critically, "So, what you're saying, is …"

"Friends of the mayor have spoken to leading figures in Little Kiev and the major Orthodox parishes. They've been on edge this year from other perceived slights. If it came to light that we were ignoring crimes against their countrymen – who were fleeing the Nazis, mind you - then three thousand angry Slavs would tear down the district. It would be the Bonus March all over again. Gotham cannot afford that."

The other bosses looked at Icepick Johnny Nobilo. The Nobilos ran Little Kiev, and he would know the local situation. He stared for a minute, then shrugged, lifted a hand, and remarked, "No happy."

The bosses accepted this grimly. His response meant he recognized the residents' potential for unrest, and he admitted the community was too isolated for him to have much clout. The classic solutions, bribes and threats, couldn't manipulate a mob that size, especially if pride was on the line. Discouraging a handful of ringleaders wouldn't extinguish a popular uprising.

While none of the bosses were eager to admit this, if rumors spread that the Families were conspiring to hide Arturo, they would personally be in danger. It wasn't so long ago that Italians were a few steps ahead of dogs in the city's pecking order. Organized crime was an enterprise in greed, but only a fool assumed that the gangs weren't also a great excuse for a bunch of poor boys to hit back at a world that loved to spit on them. And now? These days open bigotry against Italians in the city was rare, and true hate crimes were nonexistent. Some of this improvement was the wider march of progress, but the bosses were sure a decent portion was respect the Families had personally earned by getting their knuckles dirty.

The lesson wouldn't be lost on the Ukrainians.

\---

The present.

Bullock suspected that, on some level, they all knew the noise had been a truck exhaust backfiring. They were just looking for an excuse.

Nine people fired ten sidearms. The cops had brought the .38 Colt Official Police, their six-chamber double-action revolvers. The Bertinellis had brought the .31 Hargrave, the infamous ten-round semi-automatic pistols, and that idiot from the bar had dropped an old seven-round semiautomatic of his own.

From first bullet to last, the encounter covered eighteen seconds. Again, Bullock had the mind-expanding sensation of time breaking open. When it was over, he would have guessed five minutes.

In the first minute, the world fractured in noise and light. Bullock felt a hot punch in his cheek, which he tried to touch but couldn't find. A window shattered nearby. He pointed his gun at an angry man in a suit crouching behind a tire. He pulled the trigger and the man's hand exploded. Bullock wondered if it had been his shot or someone else.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bullock noticed Officer Gilford dash into the bar, piece drawn. The kid had heard the music and decided the locals could watch themselves. Gilford made it four steps before some cosmically lucky shot popped through the wall and into his gut. The bullet had seemed so slow, Bullock regretted he hadn't plucked it out of the air.

\---

Two hours earlier.

Walter Brown had been thanked for his message and kindly escorted out. The bosses took a recess to contemplate and confer with their advisers. A light lunch was served, with serious topics forbidden by tradition.

When the bosses resumed their meeting, there was another silent contest over who had the first word. But the new calculation was easily in Frank Bertinelli's favor.

He pinched the fingers of both hands and held them up for emphasis. "Friends. Paisanos. My cousin may have the cleverness of a stupid potato. He crossed my trust, and in doing so, ruined my good name with you. He shames me. He shames us all. But he has a wife and three children. My lawyers suggest he would be put away for life. Life! And a big court case to suffer first. If he is to be punished, I will do it our way, so their home isn't dragged through the mud."

Johnny Nobilo waved his words away. "Feh! We'd risk everything. Let him suffer by the law. Other sons have fathers in jail."

Sal Maroni hummed with an unusually curious expression. "Just how much does Arturo know?"

Frank looked back, suspicious. "What do you mean?"

"Say he's put away for life. You Bertinellis pride yourselves on breaking out of the joint, but suppose he fails, or he doesn't have the heart. There he is, looking forward to thirty more years of a cement wall. Then some new fed comes in with a deal."

"... Are you asking if he would rat?"

"Maybe."

The Sicilian organizations followed a code of silence called Omerta which mandated death before giving evidence to the authorities. Breaking Omerta was unthinkable. There was no graver sin, save perhaps patricide. The number of violators in the history of Italian-American crime could be counted on one hand. Arturo had already shown his infidelity, but at least his sin had been an effort to keep his good standing in the Family. Turning rat was a different scope of betrayal entirely. Just hinting at the possibility under normal circumstances was fighting words, if not cause for a new vendetta.

Sal Maroni raised an eyebrow. "Worst case scenario. How much could he hurt you? How much could he hurt us?"

Frank glared, first with contempt, but this slowly morphed into concern. "You, no. Me?" He looked down in doubt. "Some. A lot." He pulled at his lip.

Nobilo slapped the table. "Then have a man inside keep an eye on him. Keep him honest."

Maroni didn't smile, but he looked far too keen at this path of conversation. "No, no. Don Bertinelli is right. We can't let the courts put him away. Too many opportunities for loose lips."

Nobilo asked, "Then what? Send him on a trip?"

Frank answered, "If it came to that, I'd really send him on a trip."

"You'd rub out your cousin for this?"

Maroni shook his head, "Better: get him in prison, calm the Ukrainians, then do the job, see? Everybody wins."

Falcone had held his peace so far, but now he stood and placed his palms on the table. "Please. Let's not be rash. None of our friends with the law have actually shown what case they have on Arturo. Assuming they can't break the man with their questions, and if they don't have the people he took, what then? On what grounds would they convict? Some vigilante fabricates evidence? Garbage. A child with a fresh diploma could argue his way out of that. What could the newspapers say? 'Some drifters were taken off a ship'? If we don't fall for crude solutions, this just may solve itself. No bodies, no crime."

The other bosses were about to consider this when there was a knock at the door.

A Bertinelli man stuck his head in. "Apologies. Don Bertinelli, a word from your cousin-in-law, Maria. It's an emergency. Something about the cops heading to find Arturo's secret crimes."

\---

The present.

Around the corner, Wilkes made a gargling cry. Bullock couldn't see Wilkes and Montoya from his post inside the bar, but it sounded bad. He wasn't about to cross No Man's Man to take a closer look. They were on their own.

Or, rather, they should have been. Officer Smith, who had been covering Bullock's right, hopped through his shattered window and scrambled down the sidewalk, firing guns akimbo like a real cowboy. Despite all odds, Smith was kissed by an angel on his run and made it through a salvo of hot lead untouched, diving the last five feet headfirst and sliding into the alley. Bullock heard Montoya provide covering fire as Smith dragged the hefty Wilkes down the alley to relative safety.

Officer McCoy, the cop covering Bullock's left, had been picking his shots carefully, and suddenly cheered like a child as he nailed one of the hitmen through the chest. The dying thug didn't fall but slumped against the car. Marco Bertinelli saw this and something broke in his mind. He called a retreat, opened the door of the Cadilllac and shoved his buddy inside - not that it would do the goner any good. Then Marco himself struggled into the driver's seat. The Bertinellis who could still stand made their way inside the car as well.

Bullock watched for minutes as Marco tried to put the car in gear. He raised his revolver, made a shot. The rear-view mirror fell off. The car started to pull away. No. He couldn't accept this. Leaving the safety of the doorway, Bullock jogged four steps into the street, lined up a shot while jogging, and crushed the trigger.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Empty.

Marco saw the weapon aimed at his face, lifted his own gun at Bullock, and squeezed.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

\---

Twelve years earlier.

Officer Harvey Bullock looked to all the world like another skinny, smooth-cheeked rookie, hardly more than a cadet. He stood in front of a dry goods store in his shiny blue uniform, whistling and tipping his hat at the ladies who walked by. There was a great deal of commotion inside the store, sounds of falling shelves and thrown cash registers, and now some yelling and crying. Soon, the noise stopped, and Marco Bertinelli, a muscular young buck in suspenders and stained undershirt, walked out the door grinning.

Marco held a paper bag in one hand and a golf club under the other arm. He reached into the bag and threw Harvey a thin stack of cash. Harvey grinned and they walked to the shop next door.

\---

The present.

Detective Harvey Bullock looked up at the clouds. He faintly realized he was laying in the road, his head resting on the curb. When the bullets flew, time moved like molasses. When they stopped he swore an hour paced every time he blinked. His hands were sticky. He had dropped his revolver a few decades ago. He had been in pain for awhile, but not any longer. Now he just enjoyed the clouds.

\---

One hour earlier.

The bosses of the Four Families sat in council once again. They occasionally discussed strategy as a group, but they hadn't discussed tactics in years. Still, coordinating a simple snatch and grab was elementary. The only complicating factor was that they had good reason to believe they were in a race with the cops.

The last point to debate was whether they ought to arm the crew with a Hargrave to show any flatfoots they meant business, and business came straight from the top. It wasn't a symbol they offered lightly.

The issue was deadlocked. Bertinelli and Maroni wanted to send the crew along with one. Nobilo was against it. They turned to Falcone. The weight of his word alone would settle the issue, though the others were sure they knew what a cop-friendly peacemaker like him would say.

He sat in thought, fingers steepled, then decided, "Don Bertinelli, you shouldn't send a Hargrave," The others began to respond, but he wasn't finished, "You should send five."


	11. Assess and Reload

Diana Prince was dead tired when she reached her hotel room last night for the second time. Neither she nor Steve were in a condition to make conversation – they practically napped in the taxi, each leaning on the other's shoulders. Before they parted ways in the lobby, they promised to meet for breakfast, although after laying down for good, Diana feared she would sleep until noon. Fortunately, in this regard, anyway, her fears were in vain. Diana awoke half an hour after daybreak, gummy-eyed and sore. Rubbing her face, she tried to ignore the incessant noise outside her window. She was sure she could hear four jackhammers working on streets beside their hotel alone. It was a miracle anyone lived here without permanent insomnia, but if that insight offered any deeper wisdom into Gotham City, she was too sleepy to realize it.

Diana put on a yellow sundress and found her way to the cafe on the ground floor. Her table overlooked a swimming pool that a few guests were already enjoying. Diana had once tried one of Man's swimming pools. When she had dived in, Diana discovered to her confoundment that the owner had dumped bitter chlorine into the water. Diana nearly attacked the lifeguard, certain he was an agent of the cowardly poisoner, but was talked down before she became violent. Today, she was content to watch.

Diana expected to see Steve waiting for her; he was always up early. But he was nowhere to be found. She seated herself and picked up a menu. A waiter came around.

"Excuse me, Miss Prince?"

Diana was busy trying to decide whether Eggs Benedict was a kind of egg or a kind of Benedict and delayed in looking up. "... Yes?"

"A Mr. Trevor left a message for you a few – I'm sorry, is something wrong?"

Diana had slumped down in her chair and was rubbing her eyes again. She missed him again. It was decidedly not a regal posture. She didn't care.

"No, nothing's wrong, sir. Forgive me. What was his missive?"

"Um." The waiter pulled a scrap of paper from his apron. "He said, 'Diana, be back in a minute. Don't get into any trouble!'"

"Why did your voice rise at the end?"

"He wrote an exclamation mark. See?" The waiter turned the paper around. "I assumed he meant it in a playful tone."

Diana tapped her lips. Man's punctuation was a fickle, poetical art. "Perhaps. Or perhaps it was a warning."

The waiter shrugged. "Or a command."

Diana's eyes narrowed. "No."

"Well, that's the message. Did you want to order anything?"

Diana heard her stomach rumble and appraised the menu again. "Get me your, hmm, best food."

"Our … best … food."

"Yes, please." Diana smiled up at him. "Two of them. And an iced tea."

Diana's breakfast of two steak omelets was quite satisfactory, though she was so hungry, she would have finished a plate of shoe leather. She made to push herself away from the table when a pair of hands covered her eyes.

“Guess who?”

The first time Steve had tried that, it earned him an first class ticket into a rosebush. He kept his distance for a few days afterward, until she sought him out and explained that she finally understood the game. He was a good sport about the incident, as the locals would say.

“Steve!”

She stood and gave him a hug. He was wearing his dress uniform, like usual.

They broke and Captain Steve Trevor handed her her an orange. “I went to this little stand a few blocks down. You can't find good citrus in these hotels.”

She grinned and peeled off half the skin. “Thank you!” She took a big bite.

He shook a finger at her, “You were sleuthing without a license, miss.”

She pointed a finger at him, juice dribbling down her chin. “Your name's Archibald.”

“Uh, yeah, my middle name. How do you know that?”

Diana dabbed her chin with a napkin. “A small lady told me.”

“Diana, please don't tell me you called my mom! She still thinks I'm a mechanic in Albuquerque.”

Diana looked thoughtful. “I don't think this lady was your mother. She offered no resemblance, and she didn't share your surname,” Her nose made an annoyed crinkle. “Which I know is spread patrilineally.”

“What was this lady's name then?”

“Amanda Waller.”

If Steve was surprised before, this almost knocked him over. “No! Wait, was that the lady next to you at the police station?”

“Yes, she said she was expecting me, which I found impressive. I hadn't even been expecting me until shortly before I left.”

Steve folded his hands over his head and fell into the seat beside her. “Ah, Jeezy-petes. I am so fubared.”

“What is 'fubared'?”

“Oh, uh, it's an acronym. We say it sometimes in the military when we hear bad news.”

“What is this acronym mean?”

“Um. It's F, U, B, A, R, and then the '-ed' just makes it a verb.”

“And its full meaning?”

“Right, well, it's, uh, Follies, that's right, Unfortunately, uh, Blight, uh, All, um, Responsibilities.

“Follies unfortunately blight all responsibilities?”

“Yes, that's it. You know how it is, you're trying to get a job done, when gosh darn'it, all this follies start blighting your responsibilities. Cause we all make mistakes. Unfortunately.”

“That's a wise motto.” She nodded and took her seat again. “Why does this lady cause you to make such fubars?”

“I only know her by reputation. She's very influential, I suppose that's the best word for it. I'd love to share more, but even most the rumors are classified. Some of it sounds positively un-American” He whispered 'un-American' like is was a naughty curse. “They say she put a guy in Leavenworth for sneezing on her. I heard she once drafted a baby and sent it on an undercover mission by swapping it with some dictator's baby. I don't know what she wanted, but my life was much prettier before she knew I existed.”

“Perhaps she's always known you've existed.”

Steve stared at her and slowly grimaced. Diana realized her remark wasn't as comforting as she had hoped. She patted his knee. “Don't be forlorn. I think her intentions are honorable. She offered me great help.”

“Yeah?”

“First, she said I shouldn't enter the law building to retrieve you last night.”

Steve expression bent in a awkward fuse of pride and horror. “You were going to do that for me?”

“Yes, but she suggested it would be counterproductive.”

“No kidding. Please don't do that, okay?”

Diana folded her arms. “I make no promises.”

“Fair enough. What else did Waller tell you?”

“She had some ideas about our, um, what you called 'arrangement'.”

“Were they bad?”

“Some of them were accurate.”

“Oh, dear.”

Diana smiled. “She also commended me for routing the Batman!”

Steve spit out the iced tea he was stealing. “That scumball racketeer was telling the truth?”

“What is a scum'd ball?”

“Arturo Bertinelli. He said you came to his apartment with the funny walls. He said you chased after the Batman.”

“I didn't think the walls were funny, but yes. I followed Batman away. I knew you would ferry Arturo to safety.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Only too well, it turned out.”

“What do you mean? Didn't the military officers wish his protection?”

“Not for very long. We discovered he was a crook Diana. A real bad guy. Maybe as bad as Batman. I don't know how the-” Diana watched him speak, but she didn't hear anything further. Her pupils shrunk to dots. She felt a throb in her ankle and the itch of nigh-invisible burns. With a rush of vertigo, Diana subconsciously touched her hip for a golden lasso that wasn't there.

Diana blinked. She noticed that Steve had just asked her something. “I'm sorry, what?”

“So you didn't catch this Bat guy?”

Diana nodded then shook her head. “Yes, no, I, he did get away. I chased him awhile, but he lost me in these many street. Yes.”

“Wow. Shame. You don't remember where he went? Did he say anything?”

Diana paused.

Steve lifted an eyebrow. “Angel?”

She forced her most candid smile. “Nope! Sorry, I was recalling how frustrating it was. He is very elusive. I don't know the names of the paths; they all look the same to me at night.”

“No kidding.” He shrugged. “Well, you tried. And you saved Arturo; I bet the Bat was going to kill him, which - like the guy or not - is not what we bargained for. I don't know what that nut-job’s problem is, but I'm sure they'll find a nice padded room for him sooner or later.”

Diana was familiar with the reference. “Yes, nice and padded. So Arturo is bad? Are you sure?”

“You don't want to know, believe me. But yes. He's bad news, Diana.”

“And he's not in custody.”

Steve frowned. “No, he's not. That's on me. Before word got out that he was bad, I even helped him catch a train.”

Diana shrugged a shoulder sympathetically, “Well, sometimes you're just fubared.”

Steve snorted and tried to hide it with his knuckles. “Yeah, I guess so. Let me grab a quick bite, then we can take a walk.”

“I'd like that.”

“Me too. But we're going to talk about you going out last night after we agreed you wouldn't, capisci?”

“What does that mean?”

“I don't know. Arturo kept saying it. I thought it sounded neat.”

The waiter walked up to their table and cleared his throat. “Phone call for Mr. Trevor.”

Steve looked up, distracted, “Yeah, sure. Hold on, Diana.”

He followed the waiter into the back room of the cafe. Diana ate her orange. When Steve returned, she saw in his expression all she needed to know.”

“Sorry, that was-”

“The General?” she interjected rhetorically.

“Sort of. I'm sorry, but I have to head to a meeting tout de suite. You understand.”

“If you say so, Captain Trevor.”

He chuckled with a little guilt. “Right, well, take care of yourself. I don't know how long this job will take, so if I don't get in touch, let's agree to meet back here for dinner around, say, six. The concierge desk over there will tell you about all the big landmarks if you want to take a tour. Or you can go shopping. I know you brought some cash, and they say everything's for sale in Gotham,” Steve paused and his pleasant expression turned uncertain, “Which, now that I think about it, might not be a positive thing. Anyway, tootles!”

He waved and turned to jog away, and Diana realized she never finished sharing what Amanda Waller had offered. After draining the last of her iced tea, Diana walked past the hotel concierge to the pay phone near the spinning entrance door.

She took Amanda Waller's number out of her purse and turned the dial. The call took a long time to connect, but once it did, it picked up on the second ring. A clipped male voice said, "Surgeon General's office."

Diana froze in confusion and peered again at the number. "Euh. I-"

"Can I help you, ma'am?"

"I was told this was the number for an Amanda Waller."

"And you name?"

"Diana Pr-"

"Please hold."

An interminable time later, someone else picked up the line, a woman who spoke with a long drawl. "Alabama Bureau of Hog Breeding."

"What?"

"I said you have the BHB, can I do you anything today, missy?"

"I'm sorry, the BHB, I was transferred to this line from some sort of, um, surgeon, I think, and I believe there's been a mistake."

"Maybe I can straighten things out there then. Who're you lookin' for?"

"A lady by the name of Amanda Waller."

"Well, shoot! With whom do I have the pleasure of speechifyin'?"

"My name is Dian-"

"Beauty. Hang on jus' one moment then, hun."

Diana tried to stutter out a plea to wait, but it was too late. She lowered the receiver from her ear and looked dumbly at it.

A familiar woman's voice came on the line. "Waller."

"Miss Waller, it's Diana Prince."

"Miss Prince, what a pleasure."

"We spoke last night at the entrance to a law enforcement station. You promised me help."

"And I certainly didn't forget."

"Good. Yes. Well?"

"Here's what I have in mind, dear. I happen to be friendly with the chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He's traveling at the moment, but if you'd like, we could have a chat with his chief aide tomorrow afternoon on Capitol Hill."

"And this is useful?"

"It most certainly is. I can't promise anything now, but let me present what I might offer you succinctly, Diana. Can you guess the difference between a random spot on a map and a diplomatically-recognized ally of the United States of America?"

"No."

"About seven swing votes, if you know what you're doing."

"Swing votes?"

"I suppose you don't remember the lesson on the legislative branch in primary school."

"Yes! I went to the schools. We learned about the branch. We learned all the trees."

"Uh-huh. The legislative branch of the legislative tree."

"Yes."

"Charming. Well, listen. If that meeting sounds agreeable to you, here's what I want in return. After the meeting, you come with me to another meeting just outside Washington with some other friends of mine."

"Other politicians?"

"Ha. No, these are special individuals who also have an interest in being helpful like yourself. I'd like you all to get to know each other."

"I suppose that does no harm."

"Then call me Hippocrates."

"Alright, Hippocrates."

"Uh-huh. So we have a deal. I'll have a car pick you up around three."

"You don't know where I'll be."

"Yes I will. Goodbye, Diana. Enjoy Gotham. Y'know, if you can."

Amanda Waller hung up. Diana returned the receiver to its cradle and stood in the booth for a minute. In her young life, she had almost never faced the challenge of free time. She didn't know what to do with herself. Then she was struck a bolt of inspiration. She looked under the shelf and found a hefty Gotham City phone book. After the kind of night she had been through, a lady had certain needs.

\---

Forty minutes later, Diana stepped out of her cab in a quiet part of town. She looked at the sign on the store in front of her.

Terrible Swift Sword Antiques

Weapons, Armor, Martial Souvenirs

For Sale or Trade

 

The window displays were gleaming exhibits of swords, shields, pikes, halberds, flails, and other sharp metal objects Diana didn't recognize but wanted badly to learn. She could feel a wide grin growing across her face.

Diana opened the door and skipped in. The store's only occupant stood behind a counter in the back, and this was the sort of cluttered specialty store which lacked neat aisles or straight paths of any kind. Diana weaved around cases of spears and arquebuses and ducked under some sort of camel armor suspended from the ceiling before she could clearly see the man. He was strong and portly and bearded. Despite his grey suit, he looked every bit the classic blacksmith (this body type even held true for blacksmiths in Themyscira - minus the beard, usually).

An engraved block on the counter in front of the man read: Louis Delacroix, Proprietor and Head Antiquarian. Diana nodded at him eagerly. "Hello, Mr. Delacroix." She utterly failed the French pronunciation, De-la-kwah, instead calling him De-la-crocs.

Louis Delacroix favored her with a big toothy smile. He was always happy to great a customer, and her enthusiasm would have been infectious anyway.

"Hello, hello! How can I help you, young lady?"

"I'm looking for a sword."

"I see. Do you know much about swords?"

"I'm all about swords!"

"Do you have a style or era in mind?"

Diana used to fancy herself a mistress at arms in every sort of weapon, but since visiting Man's World she had learned enough to realize that she only had a firm grasp of a few weapons of the Bronze Age Mediterranean. She didn't even know what to call half the merchandise in the store.

"I'm just browsing. Perhaps you could you show me your favorite items?"

Louis chuckled. "Oh ho! I could hardly list them all."

"Then could you show me everything?"

"Ha. You are a perfect treat, madam. Yes, I could show you everything you'd like. Perhaps it would be useful to ask, if you're looking to buy today, what you intend to use a sword for?"

Diana tilted her head at him, puzzled. "I would carry it, of course. To cut down foes in my path." She said this like it was the most obvious fact and didn't understand why he seemed taken aback.

Louis recovered quickly and said, "For one thing, if you're new to this fine city, I feel obliged to point out that publicly carrying a blade five inches or longer is illegal."

"That's preposterous!"

"I agree, and while we're on the subject, feel free to peruse my best-selling collection of knives with four and nine-tenths inch blades. It's the display case to your left. Big discount this week: ten percent off."

"No, I'm certain I'd like a sword."

"Well, as a lady, I'd suggest you start with a foil or rapier." He busied himself behind the counter and brought up an example of each. They were frail, twig-looking things. Sharp enough, she supposed, but far too flimsy to cleave a helmet. What was the point?

Not realizing her own pun, Diana shook her head and looked around, tapping a finger on her lips. "Ah!" She paced over to a stand in the back of the store and pointed to a monstrous blade the shape of a classic European broadsword but three times the size. It was taller than most men, the cross-guard alone was over a foot across, and the blade had what seemed like a small second cross-guard above the first.

She made a noise in awe. "Tell me of this one."

Louis eyed her curiously. "Madam, that's my zweihander. Late 1540s. German, obviously. The little cross features on the blade are called the parierhaken or parrying hooks. That kind of sword was a famous weapon of the Landsknecht mercenaries. In particular, it would be used by a special kind of troop called a doppelsöldner, which literally means 'double-pay men', since they were paid double. Go figure. If you look at the base of the grip on this one, the symbol there is a crude impression of the coat of arms for the Brotherhood of Saint Mark, a fencing guild. The man who sold it to me that claimed it was a teaching weapon at one of their affiliated schools in Frankfurt, though I think the symbol was added much later as a wishful decoration."

Diana casually gripped the huge sword in her right hand and held it aloft. She had seen a blade like this in the Smithsonian, but she hadn't been allowed to touch it. Diana swung the sword lightly back and forth. "Zweihander. What does that mean?"

Louis ogled her in astonishment. "Uhh, it means 'two-hander'. You see, since most people can't do, er, that."

Diana blushed and put the sword back. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it."

Half an hour later, Diana walked out of Terrible Swift Sword Antiques carrying three swords, a shield, and a short spear. She took a bus back to the hotel. Though the bus was nearly full, no one sat within three seats of her.

\---

For complicated reasons, Gotham City had long avoided hosting major military installations (besides the naval yards, which was a whole other story). Until recently, the nearest post was a depot several hours upstate called Fort Morrison. But lately, issues of national defense compelled the reluctant authorities to invest in sites closer to the city proper. The first of these to open its doors was the Conroy National Guard Barracks near the edge of the Youngstown suburbs in the southwest. This was, by psychology and population density, about as far away from central Gotham as you could go without giving up a city address.

Captain Steve Trevor took another taxi to pick up his car at an impound lot. He wasn't sure what amazed him more: how quickly the towing company stole his ride from a public parking lot, or how his new cop buddy got them to hand over the keys free of charge. From there, the route to Barracks was easy enough. He took one of the city's few raised highways that didn't end abruptly in the sky, gliding eight stories over the streets for most of a mile. Then the road dipped into a tunnel where Steve wasn't sure whether he was underground or merely inside a large building. Then, without climbing or descending, the tunnel somehow opened straight onto a regular ground-level road, which almost seemed exceptional given the ride thus far. He was lost in traffic for twenty minutes, then crossed a bridge and was lost in traffic for twenty more minutes. Then the traffic thinned and he found a sign pointing him to Youngstown.

The National Guard property was a casual place compared to the grim military bases where Steve usually worked. A guard ushered him through the small checkpoint, and Steve saw a baseball game going on in the grassy yard as he drove past. He parked in front of an officer's mess. Inside, they were still serving the last dregs of breastfasters the last dregs of breakfast.

A cook behind a huge vat of oatmeal called at him as he approached. “Captain Trevor?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, that's me.”

“You're wanted around back. You can head straight through the kitchen.”

“Sure. Thanks.” Steve walked through swinging door at the rear of the room, through the cramped kitchen, and out the back door. It led to a small park with varied exercise equipment surrounded by thin trees. Mounted on the back wall of the mess was a set of pull-up bars, and here a huge soldier in sweat-stained fatigues pumped out steady pullups. There was no one else around. Steve watched for a minute, duly impressed. He couldn't tell whether the man had done merely twenty pull-ups or two hundred; he wasn't slowing or shaking. Big guys could be strong, but they rarely moved their own bulk so easily. This one was as nimble as a middleweight.

The big guy paused briefly over the bar and glanced down. “Steven Trevor?”

“Yes. Sorry I'm late.”

The big guy dropped and wiped his palms. “I knew you would be. Don't worry about it.”

Facing him, the man seemed older than Steve first thought, with white hair, small wrinkles near his eyes, and a crooked nose. Steve glanced around his fatigues, but they were unmarked and revealed no name or rank.

The man held out his beefy hand. “Lieutenant Slade Wilson.”

Normally, a lieutenant would not have treated a captain so casually, but Steve was sure this encounter was anything but normal. And he had the odd feeling that he had heard that name before.

Steve shook the hand. “What's this about, Slade? They told me nothing on the phone.”

“Well Steven-”

“Steve.”

“Steve, sure.” Slade picked up a Dopp kit sitting against the wall. “Let's walk by those trees.”

Steve let Slade take the lead. He struggled to remember where he had heard that name. When they were beyond earshot of the mess hall, Slade stopped and leaned against a balancing log. “I got to say, Steve, you're my own personal Errol Flynn.”

“What's that mean?”

“I mean I've been at this a long while, and I've yet to bag a sweet dame as my assignment. But you?” He clucked his tongue approvingly. “One for one. Some guys have all the luck.”

Steve crossed his arms and stood back. “And just what have you been at?”

“I think you can guess. We're in the same line of work.”

“You're a pilot?”

“No. And maybe that's your specialty, but it ain't your work. Not for long, anyway.”

Steve began to sound annoyed. “I'd quit it with these runaround answers, Lieutenant.”

Slade cocked a eyebrow, still friendly. “Is that how you treat an old bud?”

“I don't know you.”

Slade rubbed a hand over his face, “Am I getting so long in the tooth? Okay, maybe we weren't buds, but you knew me. Think back. Lincoln Battalion. Jarama, '37.”

Steve stood still, mouth tight, thinking hard. Finally, he shook his head. “You're dead.”

“Yeah, I was.”

\---

Diana Prince did find it difficult to retrace the steps of her chase in the light of day, but she certainly hadn't forgotten. She was reluctant to enter the Twelfth Street Arms again lest anyone recognize her, so she asked the taxi to let her off two buildings away. It was another apartment building. No one met her inside. She climbed the stairs three at a time. The window at the end of the top floor hallway didn't have a balcony or any platform outside. The sill was barely wide enough to plant her feet. Still, she opened the window, climbed onto it, and carefully turned around, blindly crouching five stories over the pavement. Then, a remarkable leap! Diana caught the edge of the roof and swung herself over – not the easiest maneuver in a sundress.

It didn't take long to reorient herself to the path Batman had fled out the rear of the Twelfth Street Arms, leaping from rooftop to rooftop in a fairly straight line. She even found the footprints she had originally followed, plus another set of her own. Heedless of the pedestrians who might see her, Diana bounded easily to the final roof overlooking that bleak industrial area. Now in daylight, many of the buildings were in operation: smokestacks smoked, assembly lines whined, shift bells chimed, trucks rumbled, and dozens of men walked about like ants below.

But to her relief, though not a great deal of surprise, the half-built factory where she had found Batman was deserted.

Or had he? Before she slid down, Diana considered that Batman might live inside, or at least travel through frequently. As a general rule of nature, it was uncommon for man or beast or return to a lair so recently attacked, but wasn't he uncommon?

Deeply regretting her decision to leave her new swords in her hotel room, Diana cautiously approached the skeletal structure again. It was not a small building by any measure, certainly not by her old standards, but it seemed so much smaller in the day. She was surprised Batman could ever hide from her here. Generous beams of sunlight glowed through the many holes above, illuminating all but the most obscure corners. She was sure Batman wasn't here now.

Wandering around, Diana noticed several lightbulbs snapped at the stem, the glass shads littering the floor. It wasn't hard to find those sleek black throwing knives nearby, often stuck point-first into a wall. She put all of them into her purse.

In time, she found that round, open room with the chute in the floor, site of their final encounter before he fled the building for that ungodly abattoir where he disappeared – a feat that still had her convinced he was favored in some way daemonic. Diana walked a slow circle around the room. The most obvious artifact was that length of thin steel Batman had purposed as a staff weapon with … adequate success. Not the skill of an Amazon, but decent. She considered taking the staff home to practice with the new metal, but she wasn't sure how she would fit it inside a taxi or onto the plane later. Besides, she already bought a new spear today.

The next item to catch her eye was that electric drill still plugged into the wall. She noticed its stiff bit was tweaked and blunted at the end – she didn't remember holding on quite that tight, but her memory of the experience wasn't detailed, and perhaps that was a mercy. She unplugged the tool and moved on.

Diana passed twice by a tiny device on the floor that looked something like a tube of charcoal mounted on a pistol grip. She assumed it was another unknown construction tool. Finally, whim had her kneel and take a closer look at the thing. The tube seemed much too small for whatever the grip was meant to support, as if it was the bottom of a larger frame that had fallen off. Diana touched the tube and realized it wasn't charcoal, it was some dense metal or stone that had been covered in ash. No, the larger frame hadn't fallen off; it had melted off. She absently touched at her waist where the deep burn was still healing and winced. What alchemy of Man had caused that? He must have been too hurried to take it with him. Or, more likely, it had been too hot. She wiped the worst of the ash off the device and slipped it into her purse which was nearly out of space.

Diana didn't think she was deliberately searching for the room's final rewards, the teeth, but somehow she managed to find them in a dirty corner anyway. There they were, only a foot apart, trailing a stain of dark black spots through the dust. Her expression turned grim. Diana had no hesitation to violence, but there was no pride or honor in brutality. Granted, that was a hazy word, perhaps best left to philosophers, but here in the light of day, she wasn't feeling pride at knocking that man's teeth out. She took an old paper mint wrapper and picked the teeth up. They looked somehow unnatural, but she wasn't sure. Diana took these as well; perhaps a great detective could take advantage of them if she ever decided to share.

Diana climbed to the roof. She ignored the other black throwing knives as well as their longer cousins which Batman had used to parry and stab. No, she was here for the gloves. Of course, they were there where she had dropped them. She picked one up. It was so light yet so strong. Even by the level of Man's craft, it was made of wondrous materials indeed. She slipped one over her hand. Every joint of every finger articulated freely with hardly an effort, yet she had to muster a modest force to squeeze a dent in one of its joints with her other hand, despite her Amazonian strength. Incredible.

These didn't fit in her purse. She carried one along anyway.

\---

In the exercise yard of the Conroy National Guard Barracks.

Steve shook his head. “No, this is impossible. Not only is Slade Wilson dead, he looked nothing like you.”

The self-proclaimed Slade Wilson seemed unconcerned. “Alright, I'll stop playing cryptic. Force of habit, you see.”

Steve didn't respond.

Slade placed his Dopp kit on the balancing log and unzipped it. “Slade Wilson was just another Americano looking to kill some fascists. So was I. He died in combat. A hero, but tricky to identify given the sort of wounds you get playing hero. And you're wrong, he looked a hell of a lot like me. By coincidence, around the time he kicked the bucket I had fallen into rough circumstances myself, the kind where I was about to feel either a noose or a bullet in the back. So I stole the departed Slade Wilson's identity.” Slade held his hands apart as if to gesture to the scenery. “And here we are.”

“Wait, hold on. What? How? And why? If you're not lying, why did you want to meet me?”

“First, this meet wasn't my idea, I'm just a delivery boy shooting the breeze before we get to business."

"What's your real name?"

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not.”

"Listen, I promise I'll tell you the story if you don't make a stink about your gift. Deal?”

Steve wasn't any less suspicious, but he considered his options manfully and accepted that he had his own orders to follow.

“Deal. What's the gift?”

“Look at this.” Slade lifted a tiny pistol out of the Dopp kit. It seemed like a two-shot derringer from an Old West saloon, but fatter than any classic model. Slade held the gun up gently. “Custom-made. Just small enough to fit in a pocket or a shoe, but big enough to fire these,” Slade popped open the barrels and shook the contents onto his palm – two enormous bullets, each cartridge longer than one of Steve's fingers. “A variation on the .470 Nitro Express. Accurate to about six paces. One trigger pull fires both rounds. I'll say right now, these will probably break your wrist.” Slade tossed Steve one of cartridges. "Here."

Steve caught it and took a close look. “They're heavy."

“That's the last surprise. Remember your periodic table?”

“No.”

“The core is made of a metal called tungsten, nearly twice as dense as lead"

Steve whistled and tossed the cartridge back. “So it's an elephant gun packed into a fly swatter. Why only one shot?”

“My unit has practice using heavy weapons on special targets. In our experience, these enhanced rounds tend to either be overkill or useless. If two rounds at once don't work, another shot won't help."

"What if I miss?"

"Then you're six paces away with a broken wrist." Slade loaded the rounds into the pistol. "I suggest you aim carefully."

"And if I have two targets?"

"You won't."

Steve was about to speak but paused. He mulled a thought, not moving his eyes. "Tell me, Slade, who's this one target?"

Slade gazed coolly at him and handed the pistol over. "You know."


	12. Times That Try Men's Souls

85th Street. Gotham City.  
  
The wail of sirens heralded the course of passing emergency vehicles. A theater’s worth of spinning lights painted brief ghosts of red and blue in the soft afternoon shadows of a hundred brick storefronts.  
  
These fleets spoke a language the locals knew.  
  
A single cop followed by an ambulance after a polite delay spoke of a private drama. A family feud gone too far. A suicide.  
  
Fire trucks with bells ringing and volunteers hanging on the sides gave a battle cry that the problem was a force of nature or grave incompetence. A fire. A flood. A chemical leak.  
  
And the keening wail of police cruisers and ambulances coming by the swarm after a big public shootout was an old refrain not sung these days: it sang of an open season on innocence; it sang that peace had skipped town, and tranquility hadn't left a forwarding address. It sang that the Vendettas were back on.  
  
The fleet hogged both lanes of 85th Street as it converged on Carlo’s Bar. The road in front of the building was already clogged with three cop cars and a Cadillac, plus assorted civilian vehicles along the nearby curb, so the first responders were forced to park in an ever-expanding circumference from the building's front door, even blocking the neighboring intersection. The shooting had ended, but there was a natural delay in passing news up the grapevine that site needed fewer lawmen and more medics, and this delay caused the rings of parked vehicles to slowly flux as the scene unfolded, moving the vital ambulances inward and sending the outermost cruisers away entirely. Seen from above, the bloody street might have resembled a very dense atom with automotive electron - if the observer was patient and had a heart of stone.  
  
Officer Otto Wilkes was still screaming as he was loaded onto a stretcher. A tourniquet was fitted on his leg, and a one of the bar patrons was pressing yet another rag against his knee. The first two rags lay on the ground, both saturated red. His rescuer, Officer Walt Smith was holding Wilkes' hand and offering steady encouragements. They hadn't known each other long, but if Wilkes survived, they would be as tight as brothers forever.  
  
At least, that's what Officer Renee Montoya suspected. She had been comforting Wilkes herself – for what little good it did - but a doctor had pulled her away. Montoya had some of Wilkes' blood on her uniform, and the new doctor was checking her for wounds. It was no use explaining that the blood wasn't hers - as if she could fail to notice being shot. Montoya mentally shrugged and tried to relax. She had actually heard of folks who failed to notice their own bullet wounds for hours, even days. It could happen. And wouldn't that would be a stupid way to bite it.  
  
There was no use being stubborn, so Montoya played the good little patient and sat in the back of an ambulance, the hatch door providing a semblance of privacy as she stripped off her coat. While the doctor checked her back, Montoya craned her neck to peer over the door. She could just see the crowd forming around Detective Harvey Bullock. Montoya had only caught a glimpse of Bullock on the way over, but the Detective had been a real horror show. Just looking at the backs of the crowd made her soul feel bruised.  
  
Montoya told herself the big lug probably had as much blood as a yak, and a regular tenth of it was booze anyway, so he had plenty to spare. _Sure_. The crowd was struggling to lift Bullock's not-yet-literal carcass off the ground. He broke through the first stretcher they tried, so someone stacked two together and tried again. More and more hands rushed over to help until the effort was less a medical procedure and more a barn raising.  
  
“Hey, yo, Montoya!”  
  
Montoya turned. Officer Danny McCoy walked up to her in nothing but underwear and shoes, his rolled-up uniform tucked under his arm. Another doctor was babbling after him whom McCoy resolutely ignored.  
  
Montoya raised a quick hand in greeting and tried not to stare. “Hi there.” She pointed at his sodden uniform, “That stain from Bullock?”  
  
McCoy nodded and pointed at the black-red smears on her own uniform, “That one from Wilkes'?”  
  
Montoya grimaced and nodded. She looked McCoy up and down, contemplating his near-nudity. “Bullet check?”  
  
“Yeah. You?”  
  
Montoya gave a trademark snort and tugged at her outfit. “Just about to get to the interesting part.”  
  
They stood in stale silence as their respective doctors poked and prodded. Montoya once heard a teacher say that the rush people feel during danger and stress was a chemical called _adrenaline._ Montoya felt like she had downed a forty ounce bottle of the stuff. She had the brass to talk a good game, but standing still with nothing to prove, she only wanted to vomit. The blood wouldn't settle in her head. She had never seen killing before. Her mind flashed to the Bertinelli gunman whose hand had blown away. One second, a stong body in all its marvelous capacity, the next, a cripple. And now a corpse; Montoya had watched two patrolmen cover the body with a sheet.  
  
McCoy broke through her spiraling thoughts. “Hey, Smith is over with Wilkes, right?”  
  
Montoya managed a grin. “Yeah, the big _cabron_ pulled him to safety and tied a tourniquet. Saved his life.”  
  
“Look here, you both saved his life, see? And, hey, he must'a got blood on him too. Why ain't Smith gotta stand for for some quack's lil' touchy-feely.” The doctor examining Officer McCoy studiously ignored their conversation, but McCoy slapped his shoulder anyway. “No offense, doc.”  
  
Montoya answered, “Smith stayed because he punched out the first guy who tried to pull him away.”  
  
McCoy grinned. “Sounds about right. Why didn't we think that?” He slapped his doctor's shoulder again. “Just kidding, doc.”  
  
“Hey, Danny. You okay?”  
  
Officer McCoy looked away, his smile not disappearing but shrinking. “Been better.”  
  
She looked down sympathetically. “Right.”  
  
The firefight had taken less time and effort than fetching the morning paper, but she knew they both looked like they had run a few laps up a hill.  
  
“Hey, Montoya, it was tough to see back there. Were those mooks carrying Hargraves?” His eyes said he wanted her to lie.  
  
“Yeah. All five.”  
  
“I plugged one of them. Did'ja see? Bullseye. Straight through the heart.”  
  
“Yeah, you cheered like a kid who knocked one over the fence. All that noise going on, and I still heard you.”  
  
“I did cheer, didn't I?”  
  
She didn't respond. Her doctor had her turn away so he could discreetly check her abdomen. McCoy's doctor was rubbing along McCoy's scalp like he was checking for ticks.  
  
Something in McCoy's expression cracked. “They're gonna kill me, aren't they? All of us, but me first. Some dark night when I'm grabbing dinner or getting off the John. Just, pow.” He made his hand into a gun and shot it at his chin. “Just for that.”  
  
Montoya had nothing to say. McCoy let out a short, flat curse, then a long curse which he held for several seconds, then punctuated with another curse. He rubbed his hand over his face. His eyes were suddenly wet.  
  
The doctors stepped away to confer. Montoya noticed something over McCoy's shoulder and cursed.  
  
McCoy frowned. “Huh?”  
  
“Well ain’t that just the icing on the cake.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Montoya stood out of the ambulance, took a step towards McCoy, and whispered so the doctors wouldn't hear. “Your five o’clock. Across the street. Look slowly.”  
  
McCoy looked around and flinched. “Fffffffu- Flass.”  
  
Detective Arnold Flass flashed a badge to an officer keeping back the crowd and stepped into the crime scene with his posse. A towering man with white-blond hair, Flass looked like a hero from a Nordic legend got a crew cut. He was surrounded by a few of his pet gnomes and trolls, the sycophants who did his dirty work when he didn’t feel like throwing his figurative or literal weight around. And they had plenty to do, since all of Flass’ work was dirty. It took a real _hijo de puta_ to stand out as crooked in the GCPD - Flass was a bonafide celebrity.  
  
Until now, no one with enough rank to debrief Bullock’s team had arrived, so Montoya and the other officers from the shootout were technically at liberty to run the scene. However, Flass had the clout to take the lead himself. Whether or not the regs would justify the decision later didn’t matter a plug nickel. Knowing his reputation, he was probably here at the quiet order of someone in command anyway. Either that or he was sniffing for something juicy to bargain off later. No one had raided a known Family property in forever, long before Montoya’s time. The plan had been quick and lean, and kept strictly need-to-know, which was why there weren’t more big dogs marking their territory yet. This would shake some deep roots. When the dust settled, whoever controlled the fallout could spin it a dozen ways for professional gain. That was a huge temptation, even for a clean cop. A vulture like Flass would be capable of anything. He used these sorts of ugly cases like currency. If they found evidence inside, who knew how he’d abuse it? If nothing else, the last thing they wanted was to encourage any questions about Bullock’s informant.  
  
Montoya and McCoyshared the briefest look. Gunfight or not, they had a job to finish.  
  
McCoy tossed his uniform into the ambulance. “I'll run interference.”  
  
Montoya finished buttoning up and nodded. “I'll find Gilford in the bar and check this basement.”  
  
McCoy had already started walking but froze. He glanced back, biting his lip for all the pain he didn't have time to express. “Gilford's dead too.”  
  
“He-”  
  
McCoy was walking away again. “Let's do this, Montoya.”  
  
The two doctors evidently decided that it was no use asking their patients to finish their examination and said nothing as Officer Montoya pushed her way through the thickening crowd. She ignored the stares. She overheard a pair of technicians arguing over whether it was appropirate to start investigating at all. One insisted that they weren’t supposed to look into cases with Hargrave .31 rounds at the scene. The other countered that the rule had an exception if those rounds were found in GCPD personnel.  
  
She entered the front door of the bar. Most of the main floor was being cordoned into sections for study. Cops were taking photographs and unpacking swab kits when Montoya walked in. She saw a cop she recognized.  
  
“Hey, Vinnie.”  
  
The cop lowered the camera from is face. “Well, hot dog! When d'you get here, Renee? Looks like you spilled something on your pants.”  
  
“Listen, Vinnie, have you guys checked the basement yet?”  
  
“Not yet. Just took a glace when we walked in. It's back there.”  
  
She got close and whispered in his ear. “I want to check it out. Could you do me a favor and make sure no one goes down for a few minutes? Don't make a big deal, just try to steer them away, maybe?”  
  
“If Mr. Lincoln says so.”  
  
Montoya didn't hesitate. She pulled out a fiver and slapped it on his chest. “You're a real prince, Vinnie.”  
  
“Love you too, Renee.”  
  
Montoya found a rotted staircase in the given direction and made her way down. Its steps were slanted with age and poor construction. She found a light-switch and saw a room about as bland as she expected. There were crates of beer, nearly empty, and sundry cleaning supplies, all untouched.  
  
“But no furnace.”  
  
It took some searching, but Montoya found a small door concealed behind a stack of crates. It led to a miniscule bathroom, so compact the sink almost hung over the toilet. Most of the porcelain was chipped away and the mirror was covered in mottled yellow stains. There was hardly room to stand. The bulb in here was almost dead, so it took Montoya a few moments to realize that the back wall wasn't a wall with ugly wallpaper at all. It was just an ugly shower curtain. Pulled aside, the curtain revealed...  
  
“The furnace.”  
  
It took some stretching and no small amount of grease and dust on her uniform for Montoya to fit herself behind the furnace. The alleged hidden panel Bullock had mentioned at the briefing was there, knee-level, but not very hidden in her estimation. Unfortunately, the panel was bolted shut. Montoya fumed for a minute then remembered seeing some tools in the main room of the basement. Montoya again squeezed around the furnace, marveling that a stocky little guy like Arturo Bertinelli managed it. She left the bathroom and indeed found several sizes of wrench on the wall. Montoya grabbed two and hurried back, squeezed around, and hurried to take off the bolts.  
  
They came off without much struggle, meaning they had been fastened too recently for rust to build. She dropped the unbolted panel to the floor, pawed inside, and pulled out a worn green notebook.  
  
Montoya heard the clatter of heavy steps coming down the stairs. She almost jumped out of her skin, but there was no room to jump. Instead, she pushed one last time around the furnace, fast enough to for the friction to make her side burn. Montoya deftly shut and locked the bathroom door.  
  
The steps had reached the basement, and the noise of the shut door brought them towards her. Fighting down a panic, Montoya closed the shower curtain and, despairing for any good hiding spots, stuffed the notebook down the back of her shirt.  
  
There was a hammering on the door that almost broke through it.  
  
On the other side, a commanding yell said, “Officer, this is Detective Arnold Flass. Open up.”  
  
Montoya found her composure and responded in a voice that wasn't nearly as trembling as it could have been. “Just a second!”  
  
She opened the door. Detective Flass was taller than the doorframe and had to lean inward just to loom over her. The weak light made his face a haunting mask.  
  
“Step out of there.”  
  
“Right. Sure.”  
  
Flass stepped aside to let her pass then peered around the bathroom behind her. Montoya saw that Flass had brought a few of his boys with him, part of a club whose members were mostly bad cops Flass had known for years, as well as few rookies that showed a dark sort of promise. Also along for the basement tour was the nearly-nude Officer McCoy, held at the arms by two of the Detective's goons.  
  
When Flass had seen enough, he faced her and took a good look. “You're Renee Montoya from Bullock's team?”  
  
“That's right ... sir.”  
  
He pointed at the bathroom. “What were you doing in there?”  
  
Montoya answered, “Oh. Well, um, some personal business.”  
  
Flass cocked an eyebrow. “Business?”  
  
Her voice turned low and embarrassed. “Yes.” She looked at her shoes. “Lady business.”  
  
The men in the room shuddered. All were bachelors who took pride in remaining ignorant about anything irreducibly feminine and bathroom-related. Flass still kept a keen eye on her. “What's that in your pocket?”  
  
“What?”  
  
Flass didn't bother to explain but reached over and pulled the two wrenches out of her pocket. He held them up and stared at her. “So, this, uh, _lady business_ involves you half-covered in blood and grease, and having two of the buttons on your shirt buttoned wrong, and a wrench?  
  
Montoya kept a straight face and meekly shrugged. “Well, it's that time of month.”  
  
She could see the struggle in Flass' expression between curiosity and disgust. She would've paid good money to see what he was imagining. Finally, he gave her an annoyed glare as if this was one mystery he would leave unsolved. “Go. Get out of here. Or stay. Whatever it is you need to, uh, you know. Do what you need to do, is what I'm saying. M'kay?”  
  
“I was just finishing up. I think I'll head up for some fresh air in a minute.”  
  
“Ugh. Just don't scoot too far, got it? I might need to talk to you later. And take Mr. Exhibitionist here with you.”  
  
The goons let Officer McCoy go and followed Flass back up the stairs.  
  
When they were gone, Montoya collapsed onto an old stool and exhaled, pulling the notebook from out of the back of her shirt.  
  
McCoy whistled. “Way to go, lady.”  
  
Montoya stretched her neck and scratched her shoulder blades. “Nice job keeping them busy, Mickey Rooney.”  
  
“Well, I was a little unequipped for the situation. I'd like to see you try.”  
  
“Bet you would.”  
  
“ _Pff._ ”  
  
“Tell me if you can read this handwriting.” Montoya tossed the notebook to McCoy who flipped through it for a minute.  
  
“I'd say it could keep a prosecutor in business for a few years.”  
  
“Check the most recent entry. Anything about keeping folks on forced labor leases.”  
  
McCoy nodded and read carefully for another minute. Then he looked up.  
  
“We got to make a call!”  
  
“Who to?”  
  
“Canada.”  


\---

  
Canada.  
  
The town of Deux Orignaux. 351 km. northwest of Montreal. Population: 96.  
  
The town of Deux Orignaux was a peaceful little town, thank you kindly. It was untroubled by the dirty ways of life in those big famous cities like Val-d'Or or North Bay, with their jazz music and their pop drinks. No, only good, God-fearing folk lived in Deux Orignaux, and it only snowed six months a year. The town didn't know the meaning of miscreant, but it was still home to a small station of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  
  
The station was so small, in fact, that it was just a cabin, and only two mounties were staffed there, Constable Maurice Brig and Constanble Jean LeFoot. They were, at this very moment, sitting on a log in their office, each roasting a sausage over a small fire with the aid of a forked stick.  
  
Constable Brig licked his lips. “Oh! Coming along a right beauty, eh. Hope you packed a few serivettes, guy.”  
  
Constable LeFoot held up a packet of napkins with his non-roasting stick hand and nodded. “Got you covered, there, friend.”  
  
“How ab _oo_ t that. Aren't you a keener, eh.”  
  
“Hey, buddy, why the mean words, eh?”  
  
“Shucks, ya silly Newfie, I'm just poking fun.”  
  
“Oh. Sorry.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Oh, it's alright. Sorry, eh.”  
  
Their ancient telephone rang.  
  
Constable Brig frowned. “Oh, fudge. You want to get that, friend?”  
  
Constable LeFoot handed over his stick. “Sorry, oh, yes, I will.”  
  
And with that, LeFoot took the phone's receiver and spoke into it.  
  
“Yes, hello? Yes?” He suddenly stood up very straight. “Greetings, Inspector. We are. Uh, we are. We are. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Did you say that eighteen Ukrainian university students were taken by a master criminal in Gotham City who has lately absconded with them to be used by a nefarious confederate of the selfsame crime residing in our station's jurisdiction? Yes? Oh, dear.”  
  
LeFoot hung up the phone. “Constable Brig, we've been called to action, guy. It seems eighteen university students were taken by a master-”  
  
Constable Brig interrupted him by pouring a bucket of water of their fire. “Say no more, friend. I know what we need to do, eh.”  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“To our steeds!”  
  
The dashing Mounties dashed out their back door and mounted their mounts.  
  
“Constable LeFoot, just where are these poor souls being held?”  
  
“He says the old Donahue Logging Camp.”  
  
“Hmm, sounds unfamiliar. Just where is that, eh?”  
  
“Ab _oo_ t forty kilometers upstream.”  
  
“Oh, dear, I thought it would be closer, eh.”  
  
“Ah, I'm sure the kids'll be swell, eh. Stiff lip and all that, friend.”  
  
“Didn't mean to be a wet blanket, eh. Sorry.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Sorry.”  


\---

  
Three hours till midnight.  
  
Forty miles west of Gotham City was a modest cottage in an apple orchard. It was a rustic cottage but loved, with daffodils in the window and pumpkins in the front yard. Farmhands and migrant pickers came through every year to run the orchard, but the owners – the people whose names were on the deed, anyway – had been on vacation since 1934. Incidentally, the lone copy of this deed was in a safety deposit box in a Savings and Loan two towns over, and this box's only key was at the bottom of a pond.  
  
The yard was full of motion today, but the visitors were far too well-dressed and slightly too well-armed to be country folk. At some hidden signal, there was a knock on the front door, and Arturo Bertinelli exited this cottage escorted by several somber men. He was groomed and rested, and his two broken fingers were in a tidy splint. He had clearly enjoyed fine hospitality, but it wasn’t clear whether that had been as a guest or a captive. Arturo wasn’t sure himself, and he thought it better not to test the issue. So, when his hosts ‘ _suggested_ ’ they go for a trip, he ‘ _decided_ ’ that it was a dandy idea. Arturo had never been so terrified.  
  
His escort brought him to a line of four vehicles, three cars with tinted windows followed by a garbage truck. Each vehicle already had a driver saddled up, and all four engines were gently idling. The men asked Arturo to step into the third car, and he did. They then dispersed among the motorcade until each vehicle was full.  
  
The Gotham Families were strong believers in the value of the tactical convoy. A disproportionate number of successful gangland killings occurred on the road, as demonstrated by the deaths of Bonnie and Clyde or the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Families had developed several countermeasures to this threat though the years, and the simplest was a highly-refined convoy system. Any trip that carried a VIP and even a whiff of danger was taken with at least three vehicles, and one had to be a heavy truck. Straight off the lot, a truck's engine block was fairly bullet-resistant. Its fat tires were slow to deflate, and many trucks drove on six. The cabin provided a high firing platform. Placed in back, a truck could stop several lanes of traffic and screen a convoy's escape, and put up front, it had the muscle to push through bad terrain or roadblocks which were often prelude to an ambush.  
  
Arturo's procession went east out of farm country into the long hills outside the city. Though the road here could stretch miles on an incline, most were so gradual that they hadn't required much construction to work the hills' natural contours. There was one exception, the Van Buren Tunnel. The drivers had all passed through more times than they knew, but the sight of it still gave them pause. Though sunset was long gone, at least some gentle starlight outside gave silhouettes to the cascading hills around them. Even this modest glow was lost in the tunnel. The builders had installed petty orange bulbs every eighty yards. Beyond that, the convoy only had their headlights. Cars had come a long way since the men were young, but it still wasn't unheard of for a vehicle to break down with no warning, and, for a plethora of reasons, a traveler didn't want that happening in the middle of a dark hole in the earth.  
  
Their anxious journey through the Van Buren Tunnel passed smoothly until just past the halfway point. Without so much as a sputter, the garbage truck's headlights suddenly went dark, and it swerved into the tunnel wall with a flash of sparks. This spooked the other drivers, and the harsh shriek of flaying metal nearly caused them to crash, but tactical convoys were trained to keep moving, and the three cars continued towards the circle of lesser dimness at the end.  
  
There was pandemonium among the passengers, of course, and no shortage of loud speculation, but they wouldn't stop for anything. The cars left the tunnel without further incident and continued down the road, a little faster than before.  
  
To their relief, a minute later they saw the familiar headlights of the garbage truck approaching from behind. It was impossible to see inside its cabin, but it seemed intact and quickly it fell into line. The four drove on.  
  
Hills passed. As the convoy approached a particularly sharp turn, the driver of the rearmost car noticed the garbage truck start to drift across the center lane. He assumed an axle had been bumped during its accident, but that didn't explain why the truck started accelerating. By then it was too late to react. As the last car started to take the turn, the hefty garbage truck sideswiped it clean off the road. Both vehicles were airborne for a moment as they cleared the raised ground under the asphalt, then they rocked onto the grass and shot down the hill. The slope was too gentle for a automobile to easily flip, but it was steep enough to send one sliding. The car spun like a top, while the garbage truck merely fishtailed.  
  
The base of the hill flattened nicely, but the ground here was rockier than the slope, and the poor car was jostled around until it hopped into a stream. Just behind it, the garbage truck weathered the bumps well and eventually recovered its control. It turned nimbly and parked near to the stream.  
  
The driver's door opened and Batman climbed out. With the speed of an old warhorse, he gingerly made it to the dirt and plodded toward the half-submerged car. Batman waded into the water. The car's front passenger had made it out, but the dizzy gangster was having trouble standing, slipping again and again to his knees and hands.  
  
Batman approached silently from behind, nigh-invisible in the starlight. When the gangster slipped once more, Batman leaned over and calmly pushed his head down into the water. The gangster panicked, kicking and waving his arms. This merely caused him to slip further into the stream, and soon he was flapping on his belly, geysers of bubbles rising from his mouth and nose. Batman had already let go. When the man surfaced again, drenched and exhausted, Batman reached into his shoulder holster and pulled out its stubby handgun.  
  
The car battery must have shorted then because the headlights died. Batman left the man to sputter and waded around the car. The driver had been struggling to open his door against the current. Finally, he had the bright idea to roll down his window and was now attempting to climb out. His head and shoulders were hardly through when Batman reached him. With the force of an elder, Batman raised the handgun and swung its wooden stock into the driver's nose. The blow didn't even draw blood, but it was enough to stun the driver. As he slumped forward Batman felt inside the man's coat and removed another handgun. The Dark Knight dropped both guns in the stream and heard satisfying twin _plop_ s.  
  
The nearest rear passenger was muscling open his open door now. It was about a third of the way open when Batman turned and, taking advantage of his superior leverage, gave the corner of the door a tiny kick. The was enough to send the door rushing closed, right against the passenger's hand. He screamed for awhile.  
  
Batman continued around the car until he could see an outline of the other rear passenger, Arturo Bertinelli through the window. Bertinelli was curled up in a fetal position – not an unreasonable reaction to endure a spin-out without a seat belt. Batman took a tire iron from his belt and cracked apart the window with a few light hits. He used the tool to try rubbing away the worst of the glass shards along the window edge, then he reached through and took Arturo's hand. Specifically, he took his finger splint. With just a slight tug, he jolted Arturo to a sitting position.  
  
Batman spoke, his voice hoarse. “ **Out**.”  
  
Using the finger splint like a leash, the Dark Knight guided Arturo out the window. The gangster was small and fit for his age and managed to avoid the broken glass. Batman led him ever so slowly by the hand, the two of them moving like an old married couple. He was surprised Arturo didn't call for help. This wasn't a kidnapping to him; it was escape. That was interesting.  
  
They wandered until the stream was beyond hearing, far past out-of-sight. He handcuffed Arturo to a convenient tree branch and faced him. In the dark, they could only see the shadows of each other.  
  
Arturo spoke, sounding wry. “So what'd you do all that for?”  


\---

Canada.  
  
Constables Brig and LeFoot rode their horses briskly down a game trail, their red uniforms bold against the scenery. LeFoot was confident they were in the vicinity of the Donahue Logging Camp, which was to say within a half hour's ride of it. The lush sea of timbers stretched out around them. Besides the occasional bird cry and the sound of the own beasts, the world was silent.  
  
Suddenly, the sharp report of a rifle cracked the air. Brig's horse nearly bucked. Birds and woodland creatures sped out of their nests and burrows.  
  
“Heavens!”  
  
“We must away! Excelsior!”  
  
The Mounties took off at a gallop. If the shot had come from the camp, they were even closer than Constable LeFoot had expected.  
  
But they hadn't traveled twenty strides when another rifle shot split the stillness.  
  
This continued at a steady pace until eighteen shots had been fired.  
  
The constables raced on with ashen-faced intensity, murder in their eyes.  


\---

  
The State of Gotham.  
  
It was for the best that Arturo couldn't see Batman well, or else he was sure to notice out the shabby condition of the Caped Crusader. He was still stuck in his torso and neck armor, so he hadn't been able to change into a fresh suit. Instead, most of the outfit was stained or weathered. He was missing his long gloves. The parts of the armor he had removed had awkward fasteners and ties under them, and many were bent or ripped. In short, he looked a wreck.  
  
“ **Last evening, a woman opened your security door and followed me out of your room. Tall. Dark hair. Accent. Boots. Metal chest-piece. She asked about you by name. Who is she, and how do you know her?** ”  
  
To Batman's irritation, Arturo responded with a stare followed by a chuckle. “What, you want her number? Of all the storms breaking around the city, of all the uppity chickens running with their heads cut off, she's the one you ask about? That spangle dame? Legs? Jeez Manetti, what a card, this one.”  
  
“ **Arturo...** ”  
  
“Funnier thing, _heh heh_ , I have no idea. You said she asked about me? That's real sweet.”  
  
They saw the edge of an arc of headlights sweep the ground in the distance. The other cars of the convoy must have followed them down the hill.  
  
Arturo swallowed. “Hey, Batman, can we take this little interrogation somewhere more private?”  
  
Batman looked at the fading light behind them then appraised Arturo. “ **No. You'll stay until I'm satisfied.”**  
  
“Fine, what do you want? I really don't know her.”  
  
“ **You have no idea why she came to defend you?** ”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
There were far-off shouts. Batman coldly folded his arms. The motion hurt like someone stuck a screwdriver in his elbow, but he didn't let it show.  
  
“Okay, okay, here: she's with the Army.”  
  
“... **The Army.** ”  
  
“Or the Navy or something, I don't know.”  
  
Batman started pacing around the tree. “ **And how are you involved with that?** ”  
  
Arturo kept his lips shut of several seconds. Then he heard another shout, a little closer.  
  
“Okay, okay! But if you really don't kill, then you didn't hear this from me, cause everybody'd want my head, see?”  
  
“ **Well?** ”  
  
“Here's how it is. We got a deal with the Navy, okay?” Batman didn't need to ask who 'we' were. “They want the scoop on krauts and the like messing up the city. We happen to be positioned to help in that regard.”  
  
“ **All the Families?** ”  
  
“As far as I heard, yeah.”  
  
“ **How deep in is the deal known?** ”  
  
“'Bout half a dozen for us, can't speak for the others.”  
  
“ **Who's your contact** ”  
  
“Big Navy honcho. Guy named corn-something. Cornhole. Corn husk. Cornwall. Don't remember. Can we get going?”  
  
“ **And the woman?** ”  
  
“Look, when you broke into my home, I called the Navy for some help, and they send her along. Never seen her before; I was just as surprised as you. But she says she's with Uncle Sam, and her buddy who came later sure was military. He was convinced you'd be a goner, so I guess whatever her story is ain't news to them.”  
  
“ **And that's all you know?** ”  
  
“We didn't have time for a picnic lunch, right? Yeah, that's it, now can we get going?”  
  
Arturo heard no response. He looked around. Batman's menacing shape was gone.  
  
He heard a search party calling to him from just beyond his stand of trees. A flashlight beam swept his way.  


\---

  
Canada.  
  
Constables Brig and LeFoot burst into the clearing of the logging camp, service weapons brandished. The sight that greeted them was so macabre and bizarre, it was like they were seeing a staged tableau. Eighteen young men and women, all obvious victims of weeks of hard labor and neglect, stood rigid in a semi-circle around two bodies on the ground. The young people were standing in rough order from the strongest and most assertive to the most meek, if such a thing could be judged at a glance. The last, a wisp of a girl with rivers of dried tears on her face, was holding a rifle, a tongue of smoke still wafting out of the barrel. The two bodies were ground beef, each riddled with nine bullets fired at close range.


	13. Recovery

Only two cars remained in the convoy sent to bring Arturo Bertinelli to Gotham City. The third car was stuck in two feet of water in some wild gully, and the heavy truck had suddenly roared away while the rescue party was helping Arturo. He had been handcuffed to a tree branch. It took two big men to break the branch, but no one could remove the cuff from his wrist, so they left it hanging. The leader of the convoy was on a tight deadline, so he told Arturo to take a seat in the first car while the former occupant stayed behind to wait with the stranded car's crew. The truck's original driver and guard were still nowhere to be found.  
  
The remainder of the trip was uneventful. The two cars returned to the highway and cruised homeward at twenty over the limit, assured in advance that no traffic cops would visit their route tonight. The leader grilled Arturo along the way, demanding to know what had just happened. Arturo could only balefully respond, “Batman.” The leader asked what Batman wanted with him, and why he go through the trouble of catching him just to leave him in the woods. Arturo answered that Batman wanted to take him away for motives unknown, but the rescuers caught up too fast, and Batman left him behind to escape. He declined to mention that he and Batman had briefly talked. The leader seemed annoyed but accepted this explanation for the time being since he doubted the existence of the so-called Batman anyway.  
  
They reached the Gotham City limits in the nick of time, pulling into a full service car wash that happened to be built atop the municipal border. The entry parking lot was still in the neighboring county, offering a fig leaf of privacy from the GCPD. The car wash should have been closed, but one of its garage-like booths was open and lit, and a few vehicles were parked. The two cars stopped, and Arturo’s escorts led him to the open booth. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the glare, but the five figures at the entrance quickly resolved into his wife, his three children, and his cousin Frank. Shadows with rifles lurked outside the light. His wife and children looked scared, but they put on a brave face. Frank for his part wasn’t nearly as angry as he might have been alone. His expression mostly glum.  
  
As Arturo approached, Frank stepped forward, glancing oddly at the free-swinging handcuffs but making no comment. Instead, he stared Arturo in the eyes, his gaze cool and sad but unsympathetic, and when he spoke, it was all business.  
  
“A lawyer will see you before your arraignment. You can have,” he studied his watch, “two minutes with your wife, then go through.” He gave Arturo a light slap on the cheek and pointed at him. “You know the rules.”  
  
Frank didn’t wait for a response. He nodded to one the shadows and walked past Arturo into the dim parking lot. Arturo shivered. He features had been haunted all evening, but he looked worse since his brief encounter with Batman. His wife flew towards him, and they fell into each other’s arms. His children scrambled around to join the embrace. The remaining shadows said nothing and kept their distance. After three minutes, a shadow came and led his family away. Arturo walked into the booth and swung the door shut behind him. If he had been younger, even three days younger, he might have dreamed of some escape even now, but he didn’t dream of anything. Now he felt like a puppet. He crossed the short room full of hoses and brushes and opened the other door. The pavement outside was Gotham City. Four grim police officers stood in a line.  
  
An officer told him he was under arrest. He said nothing. That was the first rule.  


\---

  
Two minutes earlier.  
  
Frank Bertinelli removed his hat and slid into the rear seat of the limousine. Beside him sat Carmine Falcone. They were old men and didn't rush to conversation. The pair had known each other a long time: often friends, often rivals, always peers. Falcone gave Bertinelli time to gather his composure and let the world settle. When he finally spoke, it was without preamble.  
  
“We have troubles, Frank.”  
  
“Mmm.”  
  
“Your man out there was bad news, but it was a problem we could contain. You would've taken a hit, an ugly hit, if you'll forgive my saying so, but it wouldn't have knocked you down. But this business?”  
  
“We didn't know that. We still don't.”  
  
“This business though? Shooting in the streets? A mess. This is on me. I overreacted.”  
  
“You made a call, Carmine. And we backed you. That's the job. What we do takes _coglioni_ , no question. And it turned sour. So what?”  
  
“Well, the Department's had half an evening to put the scene together. City Hall won't begin to act on it for another day at least. We have time to organize. Let's strangle the problem in the crib.”  
  
Frank Bertinelli nodded gravely. “The troops that made it back are lying low. Might have them skip town. Luca Passafaro died on the way home. We'll fake a scene and let some out-of-state coroner find him. Maybe Hub City. That just leaves Eddie Pints. Cops plugged the poor man's hand. Bled out on the spot.”  
  
“Any dirt the police can find through Eddie? Any connections?”  
  
“Peh. We already cleared his house, talked to his folks. That's shut tight.”  
  
“Suppose they find something you missed.”  
  
“Well, Maroni knows people who could lose a body at the morgue. Maybe they haven't made Eddie's name yet. Of course, Maroni isn't one to share on the cheap.”  
  
“I've no doubt we could convince him of the necessity, should it come to that. But that's not the real problem, is it?”  
  
Bertinelli grit his teeth and shook his head. “That damned fat slob.”  
  
Falcone nodded gently. “Detective Harvey Bullock. He's in surgery. Word is he's not supposed to make it till dawn. Still, I have it on good authority that the other officers on the scene heard Bullock talking to your man Marco. Called him out by name."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Assuming they find whatever Arturo stashed in that bar, that's a big sign in your direction. If they can use Marco to connect the shooting to your people, even if he hides, that might be a case.”  
  
“I know that. Don't you think I know that?”  
  
“And then there's the Hargraves. That pins us to the wall.”  
  
“I know! Those was supposed to keep this from being an issue! I'm thinking I better melt the five down 'fore they end up as evidence.”  
  
Falcone, who didn't bat an eye at the mention of two men bleeding to death, winced at this. “Those are valuable pieces, Frank.”  
  
“Are they? Are they still? Cause I think this Bullock and his buddies just showed us that the cops don't follow the agreement no more. Maybe they's just popguns now."  
  
"We don't know that."  
  
"Listen, you're the one with ears on the force. Are you telling me this guy was completely off the reservation? One hundred percent? Cause if he wasn't, if they don't toss the whole lot of 'em out for this, then bad enough we shot some lawmen, but if he gets any support for standing up to us, institutional-wise, then that's a whole different disaster coming in. That redefines things, see? That flips the chess board.”  
  
“It shouldn't come to that.”  
  
“What have you heard?”  
  
“Nothing from command yet. The rank and file are all noise. None of them were there anyway, so you could have five officers with seven stories of how it went on. Not much of a surprises, really: reliable sources have warned about renegades in the Department for years."  
  
"I know."  
  
"We knew we could never please everyone, but our friends at the top have always shut down any upstarts who makes real moves against us. And hey, they've done an impeccable job of that for, what, ten years? I wouldn't say the board's flipped just yet. We play this right, we make nice, they pin the shootings on some patsy. We might even turn it into a win.”  
  
“You're a real piece of work, Carmine. There's always an angle for you, ain't there? Got to find a win.”  
  
Falcone didn't respond to the comment. “As I understand it, the other cops on this Bullock's team said the fight happened across a street. They say Bullock was the only one who walked close enough to get a decent look at your boys. The rest of this detective's team is new blood, Frank.”  
  
“Maybe that's the problem. This new generation didn't live through the old days. They don't understand the reasons for our status quo.”  
  
“I meant the other officers had never seen your five before. Not in person. And they weren't that close when someone opened fire.”  
  
“Ah! I see what you're saying! The best they got is old mugshots. We tear any eyewitness that takes the stand.”  
  
“But Bullock would know. He already called out Marco, good odds he'd recognize a few others, provided he makes it through the night.”  
  
“There, no problem, then. We take that option off that table.”  
  
“No, Frank, we can't snuff him. Not after all this.”  
  
“Come no now, Carmine. He broke the rules, see? Doesn't get more clear than this.”  
  
“They might be a way to fix our predicament, but we lose whatever bargaining position we have if we kill another cop, at least for the foreseeable future. We keep our hands clean. Let's see if nature does it for us.”  
  
“Right, _nature_. If you say so. But you better be right.”  
  
There were silent for a time. The driver watched Arturo enter the car wash and slowly brought the limo out of the parking lot. Frank Bertinelli turned and watched some cops argue whether to cuff Arturo above or below his existing cuff. Carmine Falcone glanced around Frank and was puzzled.  
  
“Why does he have that on his arm?”  
  
“The man I sent to bring Arturo in said Arturo claims it was Batman.”  
  
“Batman? Again?”  
  
“Says Batman stole a truck, ran him off the road, and stuck him to a tree with them cuffs. And my man admits that everything about that seems true, at least that someone did it. Can you beat that?”  
  
“How would Batman know where to find him? Or the time and route of their trip?”  
  
“Beats me. I sure have some questions to ask when there aren't ten others pots boiling over.”  
  
“I think we all have some questions to ask. Arturo said Batman had cut a hole in his roof last night, yes?”  
  
“Someone sure did. The repair crew brought me photos today. A few guys who've crossed paths say its a symbol. Arturo said he and the missus wake up to see it cut there in the roof. Scared them half to death, they say. And then this _stronzo_ leaves papers about this kidnapping on Arturo's wall. That's what up and spooked him into calling the Army.”  
  
“Say, if these papers match some that show up at the hearing, we'll know that this Batman has some link to Bullock and maybe others in the prosecution.”  
  
“My thoughts exactly, 'cept what does that do for us? Bat's in the wind and Bullock's on a slab.”  
  
“That can't be his only link. I'm sure he'll show his face again. Or mask, I suppose. He'll be back.”  
  
The attitude of the Gotham's Four Families toward the Batman myth was complicated. In his early days, when Batman hunted lone felons and petty gangs in the back alleys civilization forgot, they had no reason to believe the stories when anything more than excuses and exaggerations. If anything, the Families would have encouraged such a vigilante. They made little to no profit from these independent thugs; in fact, their activity lowered property values. After a few months, the Bat's appearances turned less frequent, but he was seen around fatter and fatter targets. A rumor of a sighting would float up, then a week later, some conman or port official would be arrested, and the charge would stick!  
  
That occasionally caught the Families attention, but none of their sources found anything was amiss save uncommonly determined police work. The GCPD even had a Batman task force, but it was an understaffed, marginalized joke: they clearly didn't believe the guy was a threat. And the Families didn't necessarily see the new attacks as a bad thing, even if they recognized a pattern. The Families had a hand in every corner of the city in one way or another, so any loss usually stung, but it made for good publicity when bad guys went to jail. That put people at ease. And from a Darwinian perspective, each arrest got rid of a bum who wasn't careful enough to protect himself and could be replaced without hassle.  
  
The crucial truth was that the Families had a clear sense of their own kingdoms, and in two long years, Batman had not hurt, had not so much as threatened a core interest on any of their domains. Oh, he would probe the edges. If any of them had bothered to focus, they would have seen him circling like a shark, season after season. He would be stalk a friend of an associate, a minor supplier, players just outside the circumference of their organizations, or at least outside those echelons the bosses could personally supervise. And with each bite, Batman grew a little wiser, a little more connected, a little more feared. He never stayed near one kingdom long enough to become a nuisance, and it could never be proven that he had passed through at all. Nine times in ten, his targets looked so dumb and guilty on their own that one would expect them to fabricate an excuse. There were parts of Gotham where Batman was blamed for three times as many criminal failures as he caused.  
  
His first real assault on a royal castle was his move against Arturo. Now the Families would have to at least confess he was a problem, but for all their insight, they only had a slight advantage over the Joe Public rumor mill in deducing who he was (or who they were, if the Dark Knight was a shared role) and what his (or their) ultimate agenda might be. The Four Families could safely discard at least one major theory, that he was a special enforcer of the Four Families. They could also predict that he was not an officer of the GCPD or state police. The Families' reach wasn't absolute, but it would take an awfully airtight conspiracy to keep the lid on a program like that. Of course, this Batman still _coordinated_ with the police somehow. That was obvious. But it would be no easy matter to determine exactly how.  
  
Old men had a natural prejudice to believe they'd seen it all. Carmine Falcone knew that he and Frank Bertinelli and the other bosses and their senior planners would try to fit this adversary into a neat little box they understood. They were almost always right. But Falcone had a notion that this might prove a new sort of problem.  


\---

  
Meanwhile.  
  
In the clerk’s room of stately Wayne Manor, Alfred Pennyworth sat at a roll top writing desk. The Wayne corporate empire was much older than the automobile or telephone, so business-mined Wayne men of yesteryear kept a space in their home for part-time clerks and messengers to conduct business remotely. The clerk’s room once employed up to three staff and contained at various times a telegraph switchboard, semaphore flags, and carrier pigeons. These were all long gone, and Alfred was the only hired help remaining on the ancient estate, but he still used the room as his private office. It was an efficient place, well-positioned, never drafty, neither too large nor too cramped. The desks and cabinets were master-crafted antiques, not the shoddy factory imitations American businesses tolerated today, and the light from the windows was second-to-none.  
  
On a more private interest to Alfred, the clerk’s room was one of the few which neither Bruce nor his parents had ever changed. Alfred still recognized it from the day he took the job, and that comforted him. He knew his life must seem quite comfortable already – he had health, freedom, material luxuries, dear friends, and honorable work – but these often failed to bring him peace of mind. He took small comforts where he could, however silly the source. And perhaps it was age talking, but Alfred swore by Saint George that he could sense if a room had been bothered in his lifetime. In the great houses of Europe, entire wings could go a century without alteration, but even the noblest American homes were in constant flux if the family was present. Every generation seemed compelled to rearrange the furniture, pick new curtain lace, change the violets to daffodils, and so on, _ad infinitum_. Indeed, _ad nauseum_! And these paled beside the exceptional projects Master Bruce devised.  
  
Alfred was there to read notes on one of Master Bruce’s least exceptional projects: his latest round of nutritional research. Like many great if eccentric minds, Bruce was meticulous about how he treated his body. Since childhood, he had experimented with different foods and vitamins, keeping abreast of the latest studies. In Alfred’s opinion, most were bunk. One might as well measure the proper ratio of meat and bread and vegetable by roulette wheel, since the authorities contradicted each other every season. Perhaps in twenty years, doctors would solve the mysteries of the body and prescribe a perfect diet formula. Perhaps it would come in a pill. Until then, a parade of loons would march out suggestions for raw ram’s blood or ten servings of eggplant.  
  
Bruce had tried and fortunately discarded the most disagreeable diets by mid-adolescence and now focused on fine-tuning conventional fare. Still, the young man continued to keep an ear to what passed for nutritive research and requested unusual dishes every few months so he could test their findings on himself. By longstanding compromise, Alfred only agreed if he accepted the academic sources in question. Alfred suffered no illusions that his critical scrutiny could match Bruce’s brilliance, but Alfred had some schooling in the sciences, and Bruce wasn’t immune to mistakes. For instance, in a pile of tame if likely irrelevant ideas about the effects of dairy temperature on digestion, Alfred found an interview with a college swimming coach in Maine who fed his team nothing but steamed vegetables for a week prior to each meet and just won a regional championship. Alfred was certain the swimmers must have cheated – either on their diet or at their races. Seven days without a hearty meal and they wouldn’t have the vigor to lift a teacup. Bruce had annotated the interview with a proposal to try his own all-vegetable diet on his next “low-intensity” week. Of course, a “low-intensity” week for him still involved hours of jogging and free-climbing. His only true periods of rest followed major injuries, and Alfred would sooner wound Bruce himself then let him recover from an injury on a rabbit’s rations.  
  
Alfred finished reviewing his current paper and was reaching for the next, a treatise on the protein content of mushrooms, when the trauma bell rang. With measured swiftness, Alfred rose, tugged straight the lapels of his evening jacket, and hurried from the room. He was about to break into a run when he felt the dense pistol pressing on his lower spine, and he remembered Master Bruce's cryptic admonition: _I have encountered unnatural phenomena. Disregard existing reality framework. Expect every danger._  
  
Alfred frowned and slowed to a brisk walk. In the study, He turned the face on the grandfather clock until he unlocked its secret door, then he descended to the Wayne's ancestral wine cellar. From the wine cellar, he opened another secret door and began the long trek into the Cave.  
  
The Cave's lights were on. Someone was here. Unfortunately, many chambers of the cavern weren’t visible from the stairs, and Batman - if it was Batman - might be waiting in any of them. Alfred reached the floor and called out, “Master Bruce! Are you there Bruce? Bruce!” His voice echoed off the endless crags and crevices. Alfred waited, but there was no answer. There was only the _drip drip drip_ of hidden streams and the squeak of upset bats who didn't enjoy the light or his yelling. Alfred peered into the dim, but none of the layered shadows moved save those of the aforementioned bats. Alfred was a stalwart man, a doctor (of sorts), a soldier (of sorts), a father (of sorts), and above all, British (indubitably). He did not frighten easily. But these echoes did not relieve him.  
  
Then he heard a shuffling. Footsteps? There was a noise of sliding pebbles and bumped furniture. Something fell off a table. Would Bruce be so clumsy? And why wouldn't he answer? Alfred slowly drew the pistol. He estimated where the noise had been and set a path to circle it. He moved as silently as he could. Trembling, Alfred hid behind a stalagmite. _Expect every danger._ The instruction played again and again in his mind. _Disregard existing reality framework. Expect every danger._  
  
Around the rock, there was an alien hissing sound. Alfred stepped out and fired his pistol twice.  
  
When his vision cleared from the flash, he saw Bruce facing him dumbly from a few yards away. Bruce cocked an eyebrow.  
  
Alfred nearly dropped the weapon. “Oh, dear Lord, Master Bruce. What have I done?”  
  
Bruce, still garbed in much of his disheveled suit minus cowl and gloves, looked down to inspect himself. He grasped a handful of cape fabric from between his legs. There was a new hole gently smoking in it. Alfred hurried forward, but Bruce placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, lips turned up in a hint of a grin. His voice came out in a harsh whisper. “I'm glad to see you're finally bad at something.”  
  
Alfred hugged Bruce. “I am so sorry.”  
  
“No. I'm sorry for scaring you, old friend. I've been trying to answer, but I hurt my throat last night. Speaking has been tough all day, and I finally lost my voice hours ago. If I try to yell, it makes a hiss. This is as loud as I get.”  
  
Alfred let go. “Heavens, Bruce. Your outfit's a wreck. You hand is wrapped like a mummy. You have a veritable ring of purple bruises round your neck. You smell rank. Just what has happened to you?” Before Bruce could respond, Alfred pushed him towards the medical station.  
  
Bruce grimaced and held a hand up to stop. “My knee's weak too. The joint locked on the way in. I nearly fell twice getting off the motorcycle.”  
  
Alfred ducked under Bruce's arm. “Then lean here. Steady now. Let's see what bits of you haven't fallen apart.” They made it to the medical bed. “Now why don't you take off that chest-piece, and we'll be on with it.”  
  
“You'll need a crowbar first. The back's dented in. I can't slide it off myself.  
  
Alfred found the tool as Bruce braced himself against a table. When a heave, Alfred slid the bar into a seam in the armor and used all his weight to pry the chest-piece off. After seconds of static effort, the armor split open. Bruce coughed and slumped forward, gulping down air. “ **Augh.** Huh. _Hhhh. Hhh._ Thank you,” he wheezed. “That metal's been pressing against my lungs. I haven't taken a full breath all day.“  
  
“My word, what caved in the back like that?”  
  
“I confronted a,” Bruce paused, weighing his words, “a being.”  
  
“A being.”  
  
“That looks and feels like a woman.”  
  
“ _Feels_ , sir?”  
  
“She seemed human, but stronger and faster, and she had a luminescent cord that,” he hesitated, “produced psychoactive effects. It caused disorientation and lowered my inhibitions.”  
  
“Are you saying you were drugged?”  
  
“I would have imagined so, but even if a drug was topical, the cord never touched my skin. Perhaps it was some yet-unknown radioactive effect, or ultrasonics, or another exotic matter. But in hindsight her physical skills were even more extraordinary. The woman dead-lifted at least half a ton. She made vertical jumps more than twelve feet high. I ignited thermite against her face and left a mere burn.”  
  
“I beg your pardon?”  
  
“In self-defense, Alfred, while she was bruising my throat with her bare hands. I hardly think rules of chivalry applied. Of course, if she endured that, my earlier strikes shouldn't have caused a mark at all, which makes even less sense.”  
  
“I suppose that chemical's ignition is the excuse for this horrid burn on your hand?” Alfred was busy tending to Bruce's wounds as they spoke.”  
  
“Yes, I had lost my glove at that point. Speaking of, I haven’t mentioned that I lost two teeth. Just fakes, fortunately. When you're finished the more urgent limbs, I'd like you to take a look at them. I used some strong antibiotics but my gums are beginning to show inflammation.”  
  
“Tell me you didn't take a giant dose all at once again, did you?”  
  
Bruce frowned defensively. “I had been exposed to sewage. It was an emergency decision.”  
  
Alfred sighed. “Naturally. I suppose that's ruined your appetite all day then.”  
  
“I've eaten a little.”  
  
“Accolades. Now, I must reset this finger. This may hurt.”  
  
A burnt finger popped and turned.  
  
Bruce didn't flinch.  
  
Nonetheless, Alfred winced in sympathy. He knew deep down why Bruce tried silly, reckless diets. The boy wasn't yet thirty, but his injuries were adding up. He was getting old. Bruce had always kept records of his exercises, announcing whenever he beat a personal best of any athletic feat. His adolescent days had been a steady march of better numbers, but he hadn't announced a new record in years, not since he started his crusade. It was clear how desperate Bruce was to maintain what he still had. If he felt a week of steamed vegetables could help, Bruce didn't hesitate.  
  
Bruce was still talking, breaking Alfred from his thoughts.“- is why I suggested the paranormal. Perhaps just as worrisome, I have a source who says the government is involved. If I'm right, either they found or created her. I may have to delay my campaign against syndicated crime to investigate further.”  
  
“Incidentally, how did that go, Bruce?”  
  
“Hard to say, Alfred. As you might imagine, I had to improvise, but I believe I found where Arturo Bertinelli kept the location of the Ukrainians. I passed it on to the police.”  
  
“Good. And?”  
  
“I don't know. As soon as I passed the information along, my priority was to find my source on the Woman. We'll see if it went well for the cops in the morning.”  


\---

  
Hours later. The morning.  
  
The post-surgical recovery ward at Charlotte's Grove Hospital rarely received visitors before noon, but the nurses didn't say a word when the large stranger passed by. They didn't gossip when the doctor on call let the visitor see a patient who was supposed to be resting. They didn't remark how strange it was that the dapper man was looking for the one patient with a guarded room, or that the guards weren't there when the man walked in.  
  
Harvey Bullock was asleep. His chest rose and feel very slowly. Much of his lower face was covered in gauze, patching a new hole that ran clean through his right cheek. There were three patched holes in his abdomen as well, though these couldn't be seen under his loose hospital clothes and blanket. Harvey was very pale, and his features were more gaunt than yesterday, an incongruous sight on such a portly figure.  
  
The visitor, Marco Bertinelli, didn't appreciate these fine points of Harvey's appearance. He merely confirmed that the body was alive then locked the door behind him. Marco bent over and glared at Harvey's gently snoring face. He flicked Harvey's nose. “Hey.”  
  
Harvey didn't respond. Marco recalled the doctor saying something about sedatives. Marco wanted to be here; had begged for it, in fact, but he had a train to catch. He covered Harvey's nose and mouth with one hand and lightly backhanded him a few times with the other. “Harv. Up.”  
  
Harvey briefly stirred, though his eyes only opened to slits before closing again. Marco pulled out a switchblade and held it against the flesh over Harvey's collarbone. You feel that, buddy? I don't need a rapt audience here, but I have to be sure you can hear me in there. Tap your hand three times, or I'm going to cut you.”  
  
A long moment passed. Harvey's left index finger twitched twice. Marco pocketed the knife. “Close enough.” He paced around the bed.  
  
“You are one tough sack 'a fat to kill, you know that? Ha. Sure you know. Look at you, wearing that badge since Noah built his ark, and what'ya got to show for it? Still hustlin' down alleys. Dodgin' bullets. Or not dodgin', I see. Working the next best thing to street patrol. Aren't you supposed to have your feet on your desk in some corner office by now? And yet you've still alive. Hell, you made it four whole years in the Skeleton Crew after you broke my heart with that Manzetti business. Ain't many who could swing that.”  
  
Marco shook his head and chuckled. Then all of a sudden, he turned serious.  
  
“You slug. You sleezebag. You all-singing, all-dancing human dump. What's that? No wisecrack? Is that silence? It took a shot to the face and three to the gut to finally shut you up. Well, that's priceless. Worth every penny, which is saying something. See, those Hargrave rounds ain't cheap, and that's just one of many reasons why my colleagues and I ain't supposed to have to fire them, _capisce_? Your people and my people, we had an understanding. You wanted to go down the straight and narrow. We said 'fine', provided you didn't step on our toes. Those toes used to feed you, see? But you had to go and make a mess of things.  
  
“Now, it's supposed to work like this: you break the rules, and I make a nice example of you.” He picked up a pillow and fluffed it, as if seeing how it would fit over a face, then put it down and kept pacing. Soon afterward he picked up a syringe, flicked the needle, but returned it to its tray. “Seems to be a lot of dangerous things in a hospital, huh? Ironic. 'Specially when ham at the deli can put up more of a fight than you now. But no, you and your posse have made such a mess of things that they said I can't whack you. You ain't to be touched. I'm just supposed to ruin you and drive you out of town.  
  
“But that's the other funny thing. Your life is so rotten, so miserable, you got nothing left to ruin. That trashcan you call your apartment is a cockroach away from collapsing, and you might be kicked out soon anyway. You don't own anything I could pawn for a dollar. Debts out the kazoo. No wife. No real sweetheart in years. Your friends already pity you. I can't even work you over with a roll of nickels since it'll probably kill you. I mean, I hate you and all, but _sheesh_.  
  
“So here's the new deal, and I suggest you take it before I'm forced to get creative. Don't say a word about yesterday to anyone. You never saw me. Pretend you got amnesia if you have to. Rest up. As soon as the doctor says you can walk, you leave this hospital. I'll give you one day to pack whatever sad bits are left of your life, then you get out of Gotham and don't ever return.”


End file.
